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VITTORI A 




|)opulai: lEtittfon 

OF 

GEORGE MEREDITH’S WORKS. 

Each Novel will be complete in One Volume. 
Price, $1.50. 


DIANA OF THE CROSSWAYS. 

THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL. 
EVAN HARRINGTON. 

SANDRA BELLONI. 

HARRY RICHMOND. 

VITTORIA. 

RHODA FLEMING. 

BEAUCHAMP’S CAREER. 

THE EGOIST. 

THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT, AND FARINA. 


ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers. 






VI "pTORiTr 


■/ 


BY 


GEORGE MEREDITH 






AUTHOR’S EDITION 


BOSTON 
ROBERTS BROTHERS 
1888 


TSIXS 

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IS TH 

PROPE 


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Presswork by John Wilson and Son, 
University Press. 


BT TRANSFER 
JUN e <997 


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CONTENTS 


CHAP. 





PAOH 

I. UP MONTE MOTTERONE . 

J 4 

4 

a 

« 

1 

II. ON THE HEIGHTS . « 

» 4 


4 

• 

7 

III. SIGNORINA VITTORIA 


• 

t 

• 

15 

IV. AMMIANi’s INTERCESSION 

• 4 


« 

4 

24 

Y. THE SPY . , , 

f « 

t 

4 


31 

VI. THE WARNING . w 

• 

• 

a 

• 

40 

TII. BARTO RIZZO , 

« 1 


• 

• 

45 

Till. THE LETTER , , 

4 4 


4 

a 

56 

IX. IN VERONA . 

« 4 

« 

• 

f 

63 

X. THE pope’s MOUTH 

9 « 

4 

4 

4 

76 

XI. LAURA PIAVENI 

4 1 

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• 

91 

X'll. THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY 

• • 

« 

• 

• 

102 

XIII. THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO . 

a 

4 

• 

111 

XIV. AT THE maestro’s DOOR 

« 

# 

0 

« 

121 

XV. AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT . 

4 

4 

4 

134 

XVI. COUNTESS AMMIANI 

• « 

4 

m 

4 

146 

XVII. IN THE PIAZZA d’ARMI . 


• 

«. 

4 

153 

XVIII. THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH 4 

4 

4 

4 

160 

XIX. THE PRIMA DONNA 

4 « 

• 

• 


167 

XX. THE OPERA OF CAMILLA 

4 • 

t 

« « 

4 

176 









VI 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP. PAGH 

XXL THE THIED ACT . . r ► f . . 190 

XXII. WILFRID COMES FORWARD . . , . . 203 

XXIII. FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT .... 208 

XXIV. ADVENTURES OP VITTORIA AND ANGELO . . . 218 

XXV. ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS . . . , . 227 

XXVI. THE DUEL IN THE PASS 240 

XXVII. A NEW ORDEAL. 254 

XXVIII. THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO. 274 


XXIX. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR.-THE 

TOBACCO RIOTS.-RINALDO GUIDASCARPI . . 292 

XXX. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR.—THE FIVE 

DATS OF MILAN. 307 

XXXI. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR.—VITTORIA 

DISOBEYS HER LOVER. 322 

XXXII. EPISODES OP THE REVOLT AND THE WAR. - THE 

TREACHERY OP PERICLES.—^THE WHITE UMBRELLA. 

-THE DEATH OF RINALDO GUIDASCARPI . .331 

XXXIII. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR.-COUNT 

KARL LENKENSTEIN.-THE STORY OP THE GUIDA- 

SCARPI.-THE VICTORY OP THE VOLUNTEERS . 348 

XXXIV. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR.—THE DEEDS 

OF BARTO RIZZO.-THE MEETING AT ROVEREDO . 358 

XXXV. CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN.-VITTORIA’s PER¬ 


PLEXITY . 365 

XXXVI. A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT . , . , . 376 

XXXVII. ON LA GO MAGGIORE. 384 

XXXVIII. VIOLETTA d’isorella. 394 

XXXIX. ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN ...... 406 

XL. THROUGH THE WINTER. 421 

XLl. THE INTERVIEW. 438 

XLII. TPft: SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY . . . . 443 






CONTENTS. Vii 

CHAP. RAGB 

XLIII. THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN .... 454 

XLIV. THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND .... 462 

XLV. SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END . . 469 

XLVI. THE LAST , 490 

EPILOGUE. 499 





RY 

H:B 5 Icai) 


VITTORIA. 


CHAPTER L 

UP MONTE MOTTEEONE. 

From Monte Motterone yon survey tlie Lombard plain. 
It is a towering dome of green among a hundred pinnacles 
of grey and rust-red crags. At dawn the summit of the 
mountain has an eagle eye for the far Venetian boundary 
and the barrier of the Apennines; but with sunrise come 
the mists. The vast brown level is seen narrowing in; the 
Ticino and the Sesia waters, nearest, quiver on the air like 
sleepy lakes; the plain is engulphed up to the high ridges 
of the distant Southern mountain range, which lie stretched 
to a faint cloud-like line, in shape like a solitary monster of 
old seas crossing the deluge. Long arms of vapour stretch 
across the urn-like valleys, and gradually thickening and 
swelling upward, enwrap the scored bodies of the ashen¬ 
faced peaks and the pastures of the green mountain, till the 
heights become islands over a forgotten earth. Bells of 
herds down the hidden run of the sweet grasses, and a con¬ 
tinuous leaping of its rivulets, give the Motterone a voice of 
youth and homeliness amid that stern company of Titan- 
heads, for whom the hawk and the vulture cry. The storm 
has beaten at them until they have got the aspect of tho 
storm. They take colour from sunlight, and are joyless in 
colour as in shade. When the lower world is under pushing 
steam, they wear the look of the revolted sons of Time, fast 
chained before scornful heaven in an iron peace. Day at 
last brings vigorous* fire ; arrows of light pierce the mist- 
wreaths, the dancing draperies, the floors of vapour; and tho 

B 





2 


VITTOEIA. 


mountain of piled pasturages is seen with its foot on the 
shore of Lago Maggiore. Down an extreme gulf the full 
sulilight, as if darting on a jewel in the deeps, seizes the 
blue-green lake with its isles. The villages along the 
darkly-wooded borders of the lake show white as clustered 
swans; here and there a tented boat is visible, shooting from 
terraces of vines, or hanging on its shadow. Monte Boscero 
is unveiled; the semicircle of the Piedmontese and the Swiss 
peaks, covering Lake Orta, behind, on along the Ticinese 
and the Orisons, leftward toward and beyond the Lugano 
hills, stand bare in black and grey and rust-red and purple. 
You behold a burnished realm of mountain and plain 
beneath the royal sun of Italy. In the foreground it shines 
hard as the lines of an irradiated Cellini shield. Farther 
away, over middle ranges that are soft and clear, it melts, 
confusing the waters with hot rays, and the forests with 
darkness, to where, wavering in and out of view like flying 
wings, and shadowed like wings of archangels with rose and 
with orange and with violet, silver-white Alps are seen. 
You might take them for mystical streaming torches on the 
border-ground between vision and fancy. They lean as in a 
great flight forward upon Lombardy. 

The curtain of an early autumnal morning was every, 
where lifted around the Motterone, save for one milky strip 
of cloud that lay lizard-like across the throat of Monte 
Boscero facing it, when a party of five footfarers, who had 
met fjrom different points of ascent some way below, and 
were climbing the mountain togethei*, stood upon the cropped 
herbage of the second plateau, and stopped to eye the land¬ 
scape ; possibly also to get their breath. They were Italians. 
Two were fair-haired muscular men, bronzed by the sun and 
roughly bearded, bearing the stamp of breed of one or other 
of the hill-cities under the Alps. A third looked a sturdy 
soldier, square-set and hard of feature, for whom beauties of 
scenery had few awakening charms. The remaining couple 
were an old man and a youth, upon whose shoulder the 
veteran leaned, and with a whimsical turn of head and eye, 
indicative of some playful cast of mind, poured out his 
remarks upon the objects in sight, and chuckled to himself, 
like one who has learnt the necessity to appreciate his own 
humour if he is disposed to indulge it. He was carelessly 
wrapped about in long loose woollen stufl, but the youth was 


UP MONTE MOTTEEONE. 


3 


dressed like a Milanese cavalier of the first quality, and was 
evidently one who would have been at home in the fashion¬ 
able Corso. His face was of the sweetest virile Italian 
beauty. The head was long, like a hawk’s, not too lean, and 
not sharply ridged from a rapacious beak, but enough to 
show characteristics of eagerness and promptitude. His 
eyes were darkest blue, the eyebrows and long disjoining 
eyelashes being very dark over tl»m, which made their 
colour precious. The nose was straight and forward from 
the brows; a fluent black moustache ran with the -fcurve of 
the upper lip, and lost its line upon a smooth olive cheek. 
The upper lip was firmly supported by the under, and the 
chin stood freely out from a fine neck and throat. 

After a space an Austrian war-steamer was discerned 
puffing out of the harbour of Laveno. 

“ That will do,” said the old man. “ Carlo, thou son of 
Paolo, we will stump lupward once more. Tell me, hulloa, 
sir! are the best peaches doomed to entertain vile, domici¬ 
liary, parasitical insects P I ask you, does nature exhibit 
motherly regard, or none, for the regions of the picturesque ? 
None, I say. It is an arbitrary distinction of our day. To 
complain of the intrusion of that black-yellow flag and foul 
smoke-line on the lake underneath us is preposterous, since, 
as you behold, the heavens make no protestation. Let us up. 
There is comfort in exercise, even for an ancient creature such 
as I am. This mountain is my brother, and flatters me not 
—I am old.” 

“ Take my arm, dear Agostino,” said the youth. 

“ Never, my lad, until I need it. On, ahead of me, goat! 
chamois ! and teach me how the thing used to be done in my 
time. Old legs must be the pupils of young ones ;—mark 
that piece of humility, and listen with respectfulness to an 
old head by-and-by.” 

It was the autumn antecedent to that memorable Spring 
of the great Italian uprising, when, though for a tragic 
issue, the people of Italy first felt and acted as a nation, and 
Charles Albert, called the Sword of Italy, aspired, without 
comprehension of the passion of patriotism by which it was 
animated, to lead it quietly into the fold of his Piedmontese 
kingship. 

Tliere is not an easier or a pleasanter height to climb than 
the Motterone, if, in Italian heat, you can endure the disap- 

B 2 


4 


VITTORIA. 


pointment of seeing the summit, as you ascend, constantly 
flit away to a farther station. It seems to throw its head 
back, like a laughing senior when children struggle up for 
kissings. The party of five had come through the vines 
from Stresa and from Baveno. The mountain was strange 
to them, and they had already reckoned twice on having the 
topmost eminence in view, when reaching it they found 
themselves on a fresh plateau, traversed by wild water¬ 
courses, and browsed by Alpine herds; and again the green 
dome was distant. They reached the highest chalet, where 
a hearty wiry young fellow, busily employed in making 
cheese, invited them to the enjoyment of shade and fresh 
milk. “ For the sake of these adolescents, who lose much 
and require much, let it be so,” said Agostino gravely, and 
not without some belief that he consented to rest on behalf 
of his companions. They allowed the young mountaineer to 
close the door, and sat about his fire like sagacious men. 
When cooled and refreshed, Agostino gave the signal for 
departure, and returned thanks for hospitality. Money was 
not olfered and not expected. As they were going forth the 
mountaineer accompanied them to the step on the threshold, 
and with a mysterious eagerness in his eyes, addressed 
Agostino. 

“ Signore, is it true ?—the king marches ? ” 

“ Who is the king, my friend ? ” returned Agostino. “ If 
he marches out of his dominions, the king confers a blessing 
on his people perchance.” 

“ Our king, signore ! ” The mountaineer waved his finger 
as from Novara toward Milan. 

Agostino seemed to awaken swiftly from his disguise of 
an absolute gravity. A red light stood in his eyeballs, as if 
upon a fiery answer. The intemperate fit subsided. Smooth¬ 
ing down his mottled grey beard with quieting hands, he 
took refuge in his habitual sententious irony. 

“ My friend, I am not a hare in frpnt of the king, nor am 
I a ram in the rear of him : I fly him not, neither do I propel 
him. So, therefore, I cannot predict the movements of the 
king. Will the wind blow from the north to-morrow, think 
you ? ” 

The mountaineer sent a quick gaze up the air, as to descry 
signs. 

“ Who knows ? ” Agostino continued, though not playing 


UP MONTE MOTTERONE. 


5 


into the smiles of his companions ; “ the wind will blow 
straight thither where there is a vacuum; and all that we 
can state of the king is, that there is a positive vacuum here. 
It would be difficult to predict the king’s movements save by 
such weighty indications.” 

He laid two fingers hard against the rib which shields the 
heart. It had become apparently necessary for the speaker 
to relieve a mind surcharged with bile at the mention of the 
king; for, having done, he rebuked with an amazed frown 
the indiscretion of Carlo, who had shouted, “ The Carbonaro 
king! ” 

“ Carlo, my son, I will lean on your arm. On your mouth 
were better,”Agostino added, under his voice, as they moved on. 

“ Oh, but,” Carlo remonstrated, “ let us trust somebody. 
Milan has made me sick of late. I like the look of that 
fellow.” 

“ You allow yourself, my Carlo, an immense indulgence in 
permitting yourself to like the look of anything. How, 
listen—Viva Carlo Alberto! ” . ‘ v 

The old man rang out the loyal salutation spiritedly, and 
awoke a prompt response from the mountaineer, who sounded 
his voice wide in the keen upper air. 

“ There’s the heart of that fellow' 1” said Agostino. “ He 
has but one idea—his king! If you confound it, he takes 
you for an enemy. These free mountain breezes intoxicate 
you. You would embrace the king himself if you met him 
here.” 

“ I swear I would never be guilty of the bad joke of cry¬ 
ing a ‘ Viva ’ to him anywhere upon earth,” Carlo replied. 
“ I offend you,” he said, quickly. 

The old man was smiling. 

“ Agostino Balderini is too notoriously a bad joker to be 
offended by the comments of the perfectly sensible, boy of 
mine 1 My limbs were stiff, and the first three steps from a 
place of rest reminded me acutely of the king’s five years of 
hospitality. He has saved me from all fatigue so long, that 
the necessity to exercise these old joints of mine touched me 
wdth a gi’ateful sense of his royal bounty. I had from him 
a chair, a bed, and a table: shelter from sun and from all 
silly chatter. How I want a chair or a bed. I should like 
to sit at a table ; the sun burns me; my ears are afflicted. 
I cry ‘ Viva 1’ to him that I may be in harmony with the 


6 


VITTOEIA. 


coming* chorus of Italy, which I prophetically hear. That 
young fellow, in whom you confide so much, speaks for his 
country. We poor units must not he discordant. No! 
Individual opinion, my Carlo, is discord when there is a 
general delirium. The tide arriving, let us make the best 
of the tide. My voice is wisdom. We shall have to follow 
this king!” 

“ Shall' we !” uttered one behind them gruffly. “ When I 
see this king swallow one ounce of Austrian lead, I shall 
not be sorry to follow him !” 

“ Right, my dear Ugo,” said Agostino, turning round to 
him; “ and I will then compose his hymn of praise. He 
has swallowed enough of Austrian bread. He took an 
Austrian wife to his bed. Who knows ? he may some day 
declare a preference for Austrian lead. But we shall have 
to follow him, or stay at home drivelling.” 

Agostino raised his eyes, that were glazed with the great 
heat of his frame. 

“ Oh, that, like our Dante, I had lived in the days when 
souls were damned! Then would I uplift another shout, 
believe me! As things go now, we must allow the traitor 
to hope for his own future, and we simply shrug. We can¬ 
not plant him neck-deep for everlasting in a burning marl, 
and hear him howling. We have no weapons in these times 
—none! Our curses come back to roost. This is one of the 
serious facts of the century, and controls violent language. 
What! are you all gathered about me ? Oracles must be 
moving, too. There’s no rest even for them, when they 
have got a mountain to scale.” » 

A cry, “ He is there !” and “ Do you see him ?” burst from 
the throats of men surrounding Agostino. 

Looking up to the mountain’s top, they had perceived the 
figure of one who stood with folded arms, sufficiently near 
for the person of an expected friend to be descried. They 
waved their hats, and Carlo shot ahead. The others trod 
after him more deliberately, but in glad excitement, specu¬ 
lating on the time which this sixth member of the party, 
who were engaged to assemble at a certain hour of the 
morning upon yonder height, had taken to reach the spot 
from Omegna, or Orta, or 'Pella, and rejoicing that his 
health should be so stout in despite of his wasting labours 
under city smoke. 


ON THE HEIGHTS. 


7 


“ Yes, health!” said Agostino. “ Is it health, do yon 
think ? It’s the heart of the man! and a heart with a mill¬ 
stone abont it—a heart' to breed a country from! There 
stands the man who has faith in Italy, though she has been 
lying like a corpse for centuries. God bless him 1 He has 
no other comfort. Yiva 1’Italia I” 

The exclamation went up, and was acknowledged by him 
on the eminence overhanging them ; but at a repetition of it 
his hand smote the air sideways. They understood the 
motion, and were silent; while he, until Carlo breathed his 
name in his hearing, eyed the great scene steadfastly, with 
the absorbing simple passion of one who has endured long 
exile, and finds his clustered visions of it confronting the 
strange, beloved, visible life:—the lake in the arms of giant 
mountains : the far-spreading hazy plain; the hanging 
forests; the pointed crags ; the gleam of the distant rose- 
shadowed snows that stretch for ever like an airy host, 
mystically clad, and baffling the eye as with the motions of 
a flight toward the underlying purple land. 


CHAPTER II. 

ON THE HEIGHTS. 

He was a man of middle stature, thin, and even frail, as 
he stood defined against the sky; with the complexion of 
the student, and the student’s aspect. The attentive droop 
of his shoulders and head, che straining of the buttoned coat 
across his chest, the air as of one who waited and listened, 
which distinguished his figure, detracted from the promise 
of other than contemplative energy, until his eyes were 
fairly seen and felt. That is, until the observer became 
aware that those soft and large dark meditative eyes had 
taken hold of him. In them lay no abstracted student’s 
languor, no reflex burning of a solitary lamp; but a quiet 
grappling force engaged the penetrating look. Gazing upon 
them, you were drawn in suddenly among the thousand 
whirring wheels of a capacious and a vigorous mind, that 
W'as both reasoning and prompt, keen of intellect, acting 



8 


VITTORIA. 


throughout all its machinery, and having all under full com¬ 
mand : an orbed mind, supplying its own philosophy, and 
arriving at the sword-stroke by logical steps,—a mind much 
less supple than a soldier’s; anything but the mind of a 
Hamlet. The eyes were dark as the forest’s border is dark; 
not as night is dark. Under favourable lights their colour 
was seen to be a deep rich brown, like the chestnut, or more 
like the hazel-edged sunset brown which lies upon our 
western rivers in the winter floods, when night begins to 
shadow them. The side-view of his face was an expression 
of classic beauty rarely now to be beheld, either in classic 
lands or elsewhere. It was severe; the tender serenity of 
the full bow of the eyes relieved it. In profile they showed 
little of their intellectual quality, but what some might have 
thought a playful luminousness, and some a quick pulse of 
feeling. The chin vras firm; on it, and on the upper lip, 
there was a clipped growth of black hair. The whole visage 
widened upward from the chin, though not very markedly 
before it reached the broad-lying brows. The temples were 
strongly indented by the swelling of the forehead above 
them: and on both sides of the head there ran a pregnant 
ridge, such as will sometimes lift men a deplorable half inch 
above the earth we tread. If this man was a problem to 
others, he was none to himself; and when others called him 
an idealist, he accepted the title, reading himself, notwith¬ 
standing, as one who was less flighty than many philosophers 
and professedly practical teachers of his generation. He 
saw far, and he grasped ends beyond obstacles: he was 
nourished by sovereign principles; he despised material 
present interests; and, as I have said, lie was less supple 
than a soldier. If the title of idealist belonged to him, we 
will not immediately decide that it was opprobrious. The 
idealized conception of stern truths played about his head 
certainly for those who knew and who loved it. Such a man, 
perceiving a devout end 'to be reached, might prove less 
scrupulous in his course, possibly, and less remorseful, than 
revolutionary Generals. His smile was quite unclouded, and 
came softly as a curve in water. It seemed to flow with, and 
to pass in and out of, his thoughts,—to be a part of his 
emotion and his meaning when it shone transiently full. 
For as he had an orbed mind, so had he an orbed nature. 
The passions were absolutely in harmony with the intelli- 


ON THE HEIGHTS. 


9 


gence. He had the English manner ; a remarhahle sim¬ 
plicity contrasting with the demonstrative outcries and 
gesticulations of his friends when they joined him on the 
height. Calling them each by name, he received their 
caresses and took their hands; after which he touched the 
old man’s shoulder. 

“ Agostino, this has breathed you ?’* 

“ It has; it has, my dear and best one !” Agostino replied. 
“ But here is a good market-place for air. Down below we 
have to scramble for it in the mire. The spies are stifling 
down below. I don’t know my own shadow. I begin to think 
that I am important. Footing up a mountain corrects 
the notion somewhat. Yonder, I believe, I see the Grisons, 
where Freedom sits. And there’s the Monte della Disgrazia. 
Carlo Alberto should be on the top of it, but he is invisible. 
I do not see that Unfortunate.” 

“ Ho,” said Carlo Ammiani, who chimed to his humour 
more readily than the rest, and affected to inspect the 
Grisons’ peak through a diminutive opera-glass. “ Ho, he is 
not there.” 

“ Perhaps, my son, he is like a squirrel, and is careful to 
run up t’other side of the stem. For he is on that mountain; 
no doubt of it can exist even in the Boeotian mind of one of 
his subjects; myself, for example. It will be an effulgent 
fact when he gains the summit.” 

The others meantime had thrown themselves on the grass 
at the feet of their manifestly acknowledged leader, and 
looked up for Agostino to explode the last of his train of 
conceits. He became aware that the moment for serious 
talk had arrived, and bent his body, groaning loudly, and 
uttering imprecations against him whom he accused of being 
the promoter of its excruciating stiffness, until the ground 
relieved him of its weight. Carlo continued standing, while 
his eyes examined restlessly the slopes just surmounted 
by them, and occasionally the deep descent over the green- 
glowing Orta Lake. It was still early morning. The heat 
was tempered by a cool breeze that came with scents of 
thyme. They had no sight of human creature anywhere, 
but companionship of Alps and birds of upper air; and 
jl^hough not one of them seasoned the converse with an 
exclamation of joy and of blessings upon a place of free 
speech and safety, the thought was in their hunted bosoms. 


10 


VITTOEIA. 


delicious as a woodland rivulet that sings only to the leaves 
overshadowii\g it. 

They were men who had sworn to set a nation free,—free 
from the foreigner, to begin with. 

(He who tells this tale is not a partisan; he would deal 
equally toward all. Of strong devotion, of stout nobility, of 
unswerving faith and self-sacrifice, he must approve; and 
when these qualities are displayed in a contest of forces, 
the wisdom of means employed, or of ultimate views enter¬ 
tained, may be questioned and condemned; but the men 
themselves may not be.) 

These men had sworn their oath, knowing the meaning of 
it, and the nature of the Fury against whom men who stand 
voluntarily pledged to any great resolve must thenceforward 
match themselves. Many of the original brotherhood had 
fallen, on the battle-field, on the glacis, or in the dungeon. 
All present, save the youthfuller Carlo, had suffered. Im¬ 
prisonment and exile marked the Chief. Ugo Corte, of 
Bergamo, had seen his family swept away by the executioner 
and pecuniary penalties. Thick scars of wounds covered 
the body and disfigured the face of Giulio Bandinelli. 

* Agostino had crawled but half a year previously out of his 
Piedmontese cell, and Marco Sana, the Brescian,had in such 
a place tasted of veritable torture. But if the calamity of a 
great oath was upon them, they had now in their faithful 
prosecution of it the support which it gives. They were 
unwearied; they had one object; the mortal anguish they 
had gone through had left them no sense for regrets. Life 
had become the field of an endless engagement to them; and 
as in battle one sees beloved comrades struck down, and 
casts but a glance at their prostrate forms, they heard the 
mention of a name, perchance, and with a word or a sign 
told what was to be said of a passionate glorious heart at 
rest, thanks to Austrian or vassal-Sardinian mercy. 

So they lay there and discussed their plans. 

“ From what quarter do you apprehend the surprise ?” 
Ugo Corte glanced up from the maps and papers spread 
along the grass to question Carlo ironically, while the latter 
appeared to be keeping rigid watch over the safety of the 
position. Carlo puffed the smoke of a cigarette rapidly, and 
Agostino replied for him— 

“ From the quarter where the best donkeys are to be had.** 


ON THE HEIGHTS. 


n 


It was supposed that Agostino had resumed the habit 
usually laid aside by him for the discussion of serious 
matters, and had condescended to father a coarse joke ; but 
his eyes showed no spark of their well-known twinkling 
solicitation for laughter, and Carlo spoke in answer gravely; 

“ From Baveno it will be.” 

“ From Baveno! They might as well think to surprise 
hawks from Baveno. Keep watch, dear Ammiani; a good 
start in a race is a kick from the Gods.” 

With that, Corte turned to the point of his finger on the 
map. He conceived it possible that Carlo Ammiani, a 
Milanese, had reason to anticipate the approach of peoplehy 
whom he, or they, might not wish to be seen. Had he 
studied Carlo’s face he would have been reassured. The 
brows of the youth were open, and his eyes eager with 
expectation, that showed the flying forward of the mind, and 
nothing of knotted distrust or wary watchfulness. Now 
and then he would move to the other side of the mountain, 
and look over upon Orta ; or with the opera-glass clasped in 
one hand beneath an arm, he stopped in his sentinel-march, 
frowning reflectively at a word put to him, as if debating 
within upon all the bearings of it; but the only answer 
that came was a sharp assent, given after the manner of one 
who dealt conscientiously in definite affirmatives; and again 
the glass was in requisition. Marco Sana was a fighting 
soldier, who stated what he knew, listened, and took his 
orders. Giulio Bandineili was also little better than the 
lieutenant in an enterprise. Corte, on the other hand, had 
the conspirator’s head,—a head like a walnut, bulging above 
the ears,—and the man was of a sallying temper. He lay 
there putting bit by bit of his plot before the Chief for his 
approval, with a careful construction that, upon the expres¬ 
sion of any doubt of its working smoothly in the streets of 
Milan, caused him to shout a defensive, “ But Carlo says 
yes!” 

This uniform character of Ammiani’s replies, and the 
smile of Agostino on hearing them, had begun to strike 
the attention of the soldierly Marco Sana. He ran his 
hand across his shorn head, and puffed his burnt red mole- 
spotted cheeks, with a sidelong stare at the abstracted youth, 
“ Said yes !” he remarked. “He might say no, for a diver¬ 
sion. He has yeses enough in his pay to earn a Cardinal’s 


12 


VITTOEIA. 


hat. * Is Milan preparing to rise ?’ * Yes.’—‘ Is she ready 

for the work ?’ ‘ Yes.’—‘ Is the garrison on its guard 

‘ Yes.’—‘ Have you seen Barto Rizzo ?’ ‘ Yes.’—‘ Have the 

people got the last hatch of arms ?’ ‘ Yes.’—And ‘ Yes,’ the 

secret is well kept; ‘Yes,’Barto Rizzo is steadily getting 
them together. We may rely on him: Carlo is his intimate 
friend; Yes, Yes:—There’s a regiment of them at your 
service, and you may shuiffle them as you will. This is the 
help we get from Milan : a specimen of what we may 
expect!” 

Sana had puffed himself hot, and now blew for coolness. 

“You are,”—Agostino addressed him,—“philosophically 
totally wrong, my Marco. Those affirmatives are fat worms 
for the catching of fish. They are the real pretty fruit of 
the Hesperides. Personally, you or I may be irritated by 
them: but I’m not sure they don’t please us. Were Carlo 
a woman, of course he should learn to say no;—as he will 
now if I ask him. Is she in sight ? I won’t do it, you know; 
but as a man and a diplomatist, it strikes me that he can’^ 
say yes too often.” 

“ Answer me. Count Ammiani, and do me the favour to 
attend to these trifles for the space of two minutes,” said 
Corte. “ Have you seen Barto Rizzo ? Is he acting for 
Medole ?” 

“ As mole, as reindeer, and as bloody northern Raven!” 
ejaculated Agostino: “ perhaps to be jackal, by-and-by. But 
I do not care'to abuse our Barto Rizzo, who is a prodigy of 
natijre, and has, luckily for himself, embraced a good cause, 
for he is certain to be hanged if he is not shot. He has the 
prophetic owl’s face. I have always a fancy of his hooting 
his own death-scrip. I wrong our Barto:—Medole would 
be the jackal, if it lay between the two.” 

Carlo Ammiani had corrected Corte’s manner to him by a 
complacent readiness to give him distinct replies. He then 
turned and set off at full speed down the mountain. 

“ She is sighted at last,” Agostino murmured, and added 
rapidly some spirited words under his breath to the Chief, 
whose chin was resting on his doubled hand. 

Corte, Marco, and Giulio were full of denunciations against 
Milan and the Milanese, who had sent a boy to their councils. 
It was Brescia and Bergamo speaking in their jealousy, but 
Carlo’s behaviour was odd, and called for reproof. He had 


ON THE HEIGHTS. 


13 


come as the deputy of Milan to meet the chief, and he had 
not spoken a serious word on the great business of the hour, 
though the plot had been 'unfolded, the numbers sworn to, 
and Brescia, and Bergamo, and Cremona, and Venice had 
spoken upon all points through their emissaries, the two 
latter cities being represented by Sana and Corte. 

“ WeVe had enough of this lad,” said Corte. “ His 
laundress is following him with a change of linen, I suppose, 
or it’s a scent-bottle. He’s an admirable representative of 
the Lombard metropolis !” Corte drawled out the words in 
prodigious mimicry. “ If Milan has nothing better to send 
than such a fellow, we’ll finish without her, and shame the 
beast that she is. She has been always a treacherous beast!” 

“Poor Milan!” sighed the Chief; “she lies under the beak 
of the vulture, and has twice been devoured; but she has 
a soul: she proves it. Ammiani, too, will prove his value. 
I have no doubt of him. As to boys, or even girls, you know 
my faith is in the young. , Through them Italy lives. What 
power can teach devotion to the old ?” 

“ I thank you, signore,” Agostino gesticulated. 

“ But, tell me, when did you learn it, my friend ?” 

In answer, Agostino lifted his hand a little boy’s height 
from the earth. 

The old man then said: “ I am afraid, my dear Corte, you 
must accept the fellowship of a girl as well as of a boy upon 
this occasion. See ! our Carlo! You recognize that dancing 
speck below there ?—he has joined himself-—the poor lad 
wishes he could, I dare swear!—to another bigger speck, 
which is verily a lady: who has joined herself to a donkey 
•—a common habit of the sex, I am told; but I know them 
not. That lady, signor Ugo, is the signorina Yittoria. You 
stare ? But, I tell you, the game cannot go on without her; 
and that is why I have permitted you to knock the ball about 
at your own pleasure for these forty minutes.” 

Corte drew his under.lip on his reddish stubble moustache. 
“ Are we to have women in a conference ?” he asked from 
eye to eye. 

“ Keep to the number, Ugo; and moreover, she is not a 
woman, but a noble virgin. I discern a distinction, though 
you may not. The Vestal’s fire burns straight.” 

“ Who is she ?” 

It rejoices rue ths,t she should be so little known. All 


14 


VITTOEIA. 


the greater the illumination when her light shines out! 
The signorina Vittoria is a cantatrice who is about to appear 
upon the hoards.” 

“Ah! that completes it.” Corte rose to his feet with 
an air of desperation. “We require to be refreshed with 
quavers and crescendos and trillets 1 Who ever knew a 
singer that cared an inch of flesh for her country ? Money, 
flowers, flattery, vivas 1 but, money 1 money I and Austrian 
as good as Italian. I’ve seen the accursed wenches bow 
gratefully for Austrian bouquets :—bow ? ay, and more; 
and when the Austrian came to them red with our blood. 
I spit upon their polluted cheeks 1 They get us an ill name 
wherever they go. These singers have no country. One—■ 
I knew her—betrayed Filippo Mastalone, and sang the night 
of the day he was shot. I heard the white demon myself. 
I could have taken her long neck till she twisted like a 
serpent and hissed. May heaven forgive me for not level¬ 
ling a pistol at her head ! If Ood, my friends, had put the 
thought into my brain that night!” 

A flush had deadened Corte’s face to the hue of night¬ 
shade. 

“ You thunder in a clear atmosphere, my Ugo,” returned 
the old man, as he fell back calmly at full length. 

“ And who is this signorina Yittoria ?” cried Corte. 

“ A cantatrice who is about to appear upon the boards, as 
I have already remarked: of La Scala, let me add, if you 
hold it necessary,” 

“ And whatMoes she do here ?” 

“ Her object in coming, my friend ? Her object in coming 
is, first, to make her reverence to one who happens to be 
among us this day ; and secondly, but principally, to submit 
a proposition to him and to us.” 

“ What’s her age ?” Corte sneered. 

“ According to what calendar would you have it reckoned ? 
Wisdom would say sixty: Father Chronos might divide 
that by three, and would get scarce a month in addition, 
hungry as he is for her, and all of us ! But Minerva’s 
handmaiden has no age. And now, dear Ugo, you have 
your opportunity to denounce her as a convicted screecher 
by night. Do so.” 

Corte turned his face to the Chief, and they spoke together 
for gome minutes: after which, having had names of noble 


SIGNORINA VITTOEIA. 


15 


devoted women, dead and living, cited to him, in answer to 
brutal hello wings against that sex, and hearing of the damsel 
under debate as one who was expected and was welcome, he 
flung himself upon the ground again, inviting calamity by 
premature resignation. Giulio Bandinelli stretched his hand 
for Carlo’s glass, and spied the approach of the signorina. 

“ Dark,” he said. 

“A jewel of that complexion,” added Agostino, by way of 
comment. 

“ She has scorching eyes.” 

“ She may do mischief; she may do mischief; let it be 
only on the right side !” 

“ She looks fat.” 

“ She sits doubled up and forward, don’t you see, to 
relieve the poor donkey. You, my Giulio, would call a swan 
fat if the neck were not always on the stretch.” 

“ By Bacchus ! what a throat she has !” 

“ And well interjected, Giulio ! It runs down like wine, 
like wine, to the little ebbing and flowing wave ! Away 
with the glass, my boy! You must trust to all that’s best 
about you to spy what’s within. She makes me young— 
young !”^ 

Agostino waved his hand in the form of a salute to her 
on the last short ascent. She acknowledged it gracefully; 
and talking at intervals to Carlo Ammiani, who footed 
briskly by her side, she drew by degrees among the eyes 
fixed on her, some of which were not gentle; but hers were 
for the Chief, at whose feet, when dismounted by Ammiani’s 
solicitous aid, she would have knelt, had he not seized her 
by her elbows, and put his lips to her cheek. 

“ The signorina Yittoria, gentlemen,” said Agostino, 


CHAPTER III. 

SIGNORINA VITTORIA. 

The old man had introduced her with much of the pride 
of a father displaying some noble child of his for the first 
time to admiring friends. 



16 


VITTOEIA. 


“ She is one of ns,’’ he pursued ; “ a daughter of Italy! 
My daughter also ; is it not so ?” 

He turned to her as for a confirmation. The signorina 
pressed his fingers. She was a little intimidated, and for 
the moment seemed shy and girlish. * The shade of her 
broad straw hat partly concealed her vivid features. 

“ How, gentlemen, if you please, the number is complete, 
and we may proceed to business,” said Agostino, formally: 
but as he conducted the signorina to place her at the feet of 
the Chief, she beckoned to her servant, who was holding the 
animal she had ridden. He came up to her, and presented 
himself in something of a military posture of attention to 
her commands. These were that he should take the poor 
brute to water, and then lead him back to Baveno, and do 
duty in waiting upon her mother. The first injunction was 
received in a decidedly acquiescent manner. On hearing 
the second, which directed his abandonment of his post of 
immediate watchfulness over her safety, the man fiatly 
objected with a “ Signorina, no.” 

He was a handsome bright-eyed fellow, with a soldier’s 
frame and a smile as broad and beaming as laughter, in¬ 
dicating much of that mixture of acuteness and simplicity 
which is a characteristic of the South, and means no more 
than that the extreme vivacity of the blood exceeds at times 
that of the brain. 

A curious frown of half-amused astonishment hung on the 
signorina’s face. 

“ When I tell you to go, Beppo!” 

At once the man threw out his fingers, accompanied by an 
amazingly voluble delivery of his reasons for this revolt 
against her authority. Among other things, he spoke of an 
oath sworn by him to a foreign gentleman, his patron,—foi 
whom, and for whomsoever he loved, he was ready to poui 
forth his heart’s blood,—to the effect that he would nevei 
quit her side when she left the roof of her house. 

“ You see, Beppo,” she remonstrated, “ I am among 
friends.” 

Beppo gave a sweeping bow, but remained firm where he 
stood. Ammiani cast a sharp hard look at the man. 

“ Do you hear the signorina’s orders ?” 

“ I hear them, signore.” 

“ Will you obey them ?” 


SIGNORINA VITTORIA. 


17 


She interposed. “ He must not hear quick words. Beppo 
is only showing his love for his master and for me. But 
you are wrong in this case, my Beppo. You shall give me 
your protection when I require it; and now, you are 
sensible, and must understand that it is not wanted. I tell 
you to go.” 

Beppo read the eyes of his young mistress. 

“ Signorina,”—he stooped forward mysteriously,—“ sig- 
norina, that fellow is in Baveno. I saw him this morning.” 

“ Good, good. And now go, my friend.” 

“The signor Agostino,” he remarked loudly, to attract 
the old man; “ the signor Agostino may think proper to 
advise you.” 

“ The signor Agostino will laugh at nothing that you say 
to-day, Beppo. You will obey me. Go at once,” she 
repeated, seeing him on tiptoe to gain Agostino’s attention. 

Beppo knew by her eyes that her ears were locked against 
him ; and, though she spoke softly, there was an imperious¬ 
ness in her voice not to be disregarded. He showed plainly 
by the lost rigidity of his attitude that he was beaten and 
perplexed. Further expostulations being disregarded, he 
turned his head to look at the poor panting beast under his 
charge, and went slowly up to him : they walked off together, 
a crest-fallen pair. 

“ You have gained the victory, signorina,” said Ugo Corte. 

She replied, smiling, “ My poor Beppo! it’s not difficult 
to get the best of those who love us.” 

“Ha!” cried Agostino; “here is one of their secrets, 
Carlo. Take heed of it, my boy. We shall have queens 
when kings are fossils, mark me 1” 

Ammiani muttered a courtly phrase, whereat Corte 
yawned in very grim fashion. ' 

The signorina had dropped to the grass, at a fhort step 
from the Chief, to whom her face was now seriously given. 
In Ammiani’s sight she looked a dark Madonna, with the 
sun shining bright gold through the edges of the summer 
hat, thrown back from her head. The full and steady con¬ 
templative eyes had taken their fixed expression, after a 
vanishing affectionate gaze of an instant cast upon Agostino. 
Attentive as they were, light played in them like water. 
The countenance was vivid in repose. She leaned slightly 

C 


18 


VITTORIA* 


forward, clasping' the wrist of one hand about ber knee, and 
tbe sole of one little foot showed from under ber dress. 

Deliberately, but with no attempt at dramatic impressive¬ 
ness, tbe Chief began to speak. He touched upon tbe con¬ 
dition of Italy, and tbe new life animating ber young men 
and women. “I have heard many good men jeer,” be said, 
“ at our taking women to our counsel, accepting their help, 
and putting a great stake upon their devotion. You have 
read history, and you know what women can accomplish. 
They may be trained, equally as we are, to venerate the 
abstract idea of country, and be a sacrifice to it. Without 
their aid, and the fire of a fresh life being kindled in their 
bosoms, no country that has lain like ours in the death- 
trance can revive. In the death-trance, I say, for Italy does 
not die!” 

“ True,” said other voices. 

“We have this belief in the eternal life of our country, and 
the belief is the life itself. But let no strong man among 
us despise the help of women. I have seen our cause lie 
desperate, and those who despaired of it were not women. 
Women kept the flame alive. They worship in the temple 
of the cause.” 

Ammiani’s eyes dwelt fervidly upon the signorina. Her 
look, which was fastened upon the Chief, expressed a mind 
that listened to strange matter concerning her very little. 
But when the plans for the rising of the Bergamascs and 
Brescians, the Venetians, the BolognesC', the Milanese, all 
the principal l^orthern cities, were recited, with a practical 
emphasis thrown upon numbers, upon the readiness of the 
organized bands, the dispositions of the leaders, and the 
amount of resistance to be expected at the various points 
indicated for the outbreak, her hands disjoined, and she 
stretched her fingers to the grass, supporting herself so, 
while her extended chin and animated features told how 
eagerly her spirit drank at positive springs, and thirsted foi 
assurance of the coming storm. 

“It is decided that Milan gives the signal,” said the 
Chief; and a light, like the reflection of a beacon-fire upon 
the night, flashed over her. 

He was pursuing, when IJgo Corte smote the air with his 
nervous fingers, crying out passionately, “ Bunglers ! are we 
again to wait for them, and hear that fifteen patriots have 


SIGNOEINA VITTORIA. 


19 


stabbed a Croat corporal, and wrestled hotly with a lieu¬ 
tenant of the guard ? I say they are bunglers. They never 
mean the thing. Fifteen ! There were just three Milanese 
among the last lot—the pick of the city ; and the rest were 
made up of Trentini, and our lads from Bergamo and Brescia ; 
and the order from the Council was, ‘ Go and do the busi¬ 
ness !’ which means, ‘ Go and earn your ounce of Austrian 
lead.’ They went, and we gave fifteen true men for one poor 
devil of a curst tight blue-log. They can play the game on 
if we give them odds like that. Milan burns bad powder, 
and goes off like a drugged pistol. It’s a nest of bunglers, 
and may it be razed ! We could do without it, and well! 
If it were a family failing, should not I too be trusting 
them ? My brother was one of the fifteen who marched out 
as targets to try the skill of those hell-plumed Tyrolese: 
and they did it thoroughly—shot him straight here.” Corte 
struck his chest. “ He gave a jump and a cry. Was it a 
viva for Milan ? They swear that it was, and they can’t 
translate from a living mouth, much more from a dead one ; 
but I know my Hiccolo better. I have kissed his lips a 
thousand times, and I know the poor boy meant, ‘ Scorn and 
eternal distrust of such peddling conspirators as these !’ 
I can deal with traitors, but these flash-in-the-pan plotters— 
these shaking, jelly-bodied patriots !—trust to them again ? 
Bather draw lots for another fifteen to bare their breasts 
and bandage their eyes, and march out in the grey morning, 
while the stupid Croat corporal goes on smoking his lumpy 
pipe ! We shall hear that Milan is moving; we shall rise; 
we shall be hot at it; and the news will come that Milan has 
merely yawned and turned over to sleep on the other side. 
Twice she has done this trick, and the garrison there has 
sent five regiments to finish us—teach us to sleep soundly 
likewise ! I say, let it be Bergamo or be it Brescia, if you 
like ; or Venice: she is ready. You trust to Milan, and you 
are fore-doomed. I would swear it with this hand in the 
flames. She give the signal ? Shut your eyes, cross your 
hands flat on your breasts : you are dead men if you move. 
She lead the way? Spin on your heels, and you have 
followed her!” 

Corte had spoken in a thick diflBcult voice, that seemed to 
require the aid of his vehement gestures to pour out as it 
did like a water-pipe in a hurricane of rain. He ceased, 

C2 


20 


VITTORIA. 


red almost to blackness, and knotted bis arms, that were big 
as the cable of a vessel. bTot a murmur followed his speech. 
The word was given to the Chief, and he resumed :— 

“You have a personal feeling in this case, Ugo. You 
have not heard me. I came through Paris. A rocket will 
soon shoot up from Paris that will be a signal for Christen¬ 
dom. The keen French wit is sick of its compromise-king. 
All Europe is in convulsions in a few months: to-morrow it 
may be. The elements are in the hearts of the people, and 
nothing will contain them. We have sown them to reap 
them. The sowing asks for persistency; but the reaping 
demands skill and absolute truthfulness. We have now one 
of those occasions coming which are the flowers to be plucked 
by resolute and worthy hands : they are the tests of our sin¬ 
cerity. This time now rapidly approaching will try us all, 
and we must be ready for it. If we have believed in it, we 
stand prepared. If we have conceived our plan of action in 
purity of heart, we shall be guided to discern the means 
which may serve us. You will know speedily what it is 
that has prompted you to move. If passion blindfolds you, 
if you are foiled by a prejudice, I also shall know. My 
friend, the nursing of a single antipathy is a presumption 
that your motive force is personal—whether the thirst for 
vengeance or some internal union of a hundred indistinct 
little fits of egoism, I have seen brave and even noble men 
fail at the ordeal of such an hour: not fail in courage, not 
fail in the strength of their desire; that was the misery for 
them! They failed because midway they lost the vision to 
select the right instruments put in our way by heaven. 
That vision belongs solely to such as have clean and dis¬ 
ciplined hearts. The hope in the bosom of a man whose 
fixed star is Humanity becomes a part of his blood, and is 
extinguished when his blood flows no more. To conquer 
him, the principle of life must be conquered. And he, my 
friend, will use all, because he serves all. I need not touch 
on Milan.” 

The signorina drew in her breath quickly, as if in this 
abrupt close she had a revelation of the Chief’s whole mean¬ 
ing, and was startled by the sudden unveiling of his mastery. 
Her hands hung loose; her figure was tremulous. A mur¬ 
mur from Corte jarred within her like a furious discord, but 
he had not offended byrefusing to disclaim his error, and 


BIGNOEINA VITTORIA. 


21 


had simply said in a gruff acquiescent way, “Proceed.” 
Her sensations of surprise at the singular triumph of the 
Chief made her look curiously into the faces of the other 
men; but the pronouncing of her name engaged her atten¬ 
tion. 

“ Your first night is the night of the fifteenth of next 
month ?” 

“ It is, signore,” she replied, abashed to find herself speak¬ 
ing with him who had so moved her. 

“ There is no likelihood of a postponement ?” 

“ I am certain, signore, that I shall be ready.” 

“ There are no squabbles of any serious kind among the 
singers ?” 

A soft dimple played for a moment on her lips. “ I have 
heard something. ’ 

“ Among the women ?” 

“ Yes, and the men.” 

“ But the men do not concern you ?” 

“ No, signore. Except that the women twist them.” 

Agostino chuckled audibly. The Chief resumed:— 

“You believe, notwithstanding, that all will go well ? 
The opera will be acted, and you will appear in it ?” 

“ Yes, signore. I know one who has determined on it, and 
can do it.” 

“ Good. The opera is Camilla ?” 

She was answering with an affirmative, when Agostino 
broke in,— 

“ Camilla! And honour to whom honour is due! Let 
Caesar claim the writing of the libretto, if it be Caesar’s ! It 
has passed the censorship, signed Agostino Balderini —a 
disaffected person out of Piedmont, rendered tame and fang- 
less by a rigorous imprisonment. The sources of the tale, 
O ye grave Signori Tedeschi ? The sources are partly to be 
traced to a neat little French vaudeville, very sparkling—• 
Camille^ or the Husband Asserted; and again to a certain 
Chronicle that may be mediaaval, may be modern, and is 
just, as the great Shakespeare would say, ‘ as you like it.’ ” 

Agostino recited some mock verses, burlesquing the ordi¬ 
nary libretti, and provoked loud laughter from Carlo 
Ammiani, who was familiar enough with the run of their 
nonsense. 

“ Camilla is the bride of Camillo. I give to her all the 


22 


VITTOKIA. 


brains, wbicb is a modern idea, quite! He does all the mis¬ 
chief, which is possibly mediaeval. They*have both an 
enemy, which is mediaeval and modern. None of them know 
exactly what they are about; so there you have the modern, 
the mediaeval, and the antique, all in one. Finally, my 
friends, Camilla is something for you to digest at leisure. 
The censorship swallowed it at a gulp. Never was bait so 
handsomely taken! At present I have the joy of playing 
my fish. On the night of the fifteenth I land him. Camilla 
has a mother. Do you see ? That mother is reported, is 
generally conceived, as dead. Do you see further ? Camilla’s 
first song treats of a dream she has had of that mother. Our 
signorina shall not be troubled to favour you with a taste of 
it, or, by Bacchus and his Indian nymphs, I should speedily 
behold you jumping like peas in a pan, like trout on a bank 1 
The earth would be hot under you, verily! As I was re¬ 
marking, or meant to be, Camilla and her husband disagree, 
having agreed to. ’Tis a plot to deceive Count Orso—aha ? 
You are acquainted with Count Orso ! He is Camilla’s ante- 
^ nuptial guardian. Now you warm to it! In that condition 
I leave you. Perhaps my child here will give you a taste of 
her voice. The poetry does much upon reflection, but it has 
to ripen within you—a matter of time. Wed this voice to 
the poetry, and it finds passage ’twixt your ribs, as on the 
point of a driven blade. Do I cry the sweetness and the 
coolness of my melons ? Not I! Try them.” 

The signorina put her hand out for the scroll he was un¬ 
folding, and cast her eyes along bars of music, while Agos- 
tino called a “ Silenzio tutti!” She sang one verse, and 
stopped for breath. 

Between her dismayed breathings she said to the Chief: 

“ Believe me, signore, I can be trusted to sing when the 
time comes.” 

“Sing on, my blackbird—my viola!” said Agostino. 
“We all trust you. Look at Colonel Corte, and take him 
for Count Orso. Take me for pretty Camillo. Take Marco 
for Michiela; Giulio for Leonardo ; Carlo for Cupid. Take 
the Chief for the audience. Take him for a frivolous public. 
Ah, my Pippo !” (Agostino laughed aside to him). “ Let us 
lead off with a lighter piece; a trifle-tra-la-la ! and then let 
the frisky piccolo be drowned in deep organ notes, as on 
some occasions in history the people overrun certain puling 


BIGNOEINA VITTORIA. 


23 


characters. Bnt that, I confess, is an illustration altogether 
out of place, and I’ll simply jot it down in my note-book.” 

-Agostino had talked on to let her gain confidence. When ^ 
he was silent she sang from memory. It was a song of 
flourishes: one of those be-flowered arias in which the notes 
flicker and leap like young flames. Others might have sung 
it; and though it spoke favourably of her aptitude and 
musical education, and was of a quality to enrapture easy, 
merely critical audiences, it won no applause from these 
men. The effect produced by it was exhibited in the placid 
tolerance shown by the uplifting of Ugo Corte’s eyebrows, 
which said, “Well, here’s a voice, certainly.” His subse¬ 
quent look added, “ Is this what we have come hither to 
hear ?” 

Yittoria saw the look. “ Am I on my trial before you ?” 
she thought; and the thought nerved her throat. She sang 
in strong and grave contralto tones, at first with shut eyes. 
The sense of hostility left her, and left her soul free, and 
she raised them. The song was of Camilla dying. She 
pardons the treacherous hand, commending her memory and 
the strength of her faith to her husband:— 

“ Beloved, I am quickly out of sight: 

I pray that you will love more than my dust. 

Were death defeat, much weeping would be right; 

’Tis victory when it leaves surviving trust. 

You will not find me save when you forget 
Earth’s feebleness, and come to faith, my friend. 

For all Humanity doth owe a debt 
To all Humanity, until the end.” 

Agostino glanced at the Chief to see whether his ear had 
caught note of his own language. 

The melancholy severity of that song of death changed to 
a song of prophetic triumph. The signorina stood up. 
Camilla has thrown off the mask, and has sung the name 
“ Italia!” At the recurrence of it the men rose likewise. 

“ Italia, Italia shall be free !” 

Yittoria gave the inspiration of a dying voice: the con¬ 
quest of death by an eternal truth seemed to radiate from 
her. Yoice and features were as one expression of a rapture 
of belief built upon pathetic trustfulness. 

“ Italia, Italia shall be free I” 


24 


VITTOEIA. 


She seized the hearts of those hard and serious men as a 
wind takes the strong oak-trees, and rocks them on their 
knotted roots, and leaves them with the song of soaring 
among their branches. Italy shone about her; the lake, the 
plains, the peaks, and the shouldering flushed snow-ridges. 
Carlo Ammiani breathed as one who draws in Are. Grizzled 
Agostino glittered with suppressed emotion, like a frosted 
thorn-bush in the sunlight. Ugo Corte had his thick brows 
down, as a man who is reading iron matter. The Chief 
alone showed no sign beyond a half lifting of the hand, and 
a most luminous fixed observation of the fair young woman, 
from whom power was an emanation, free of effort. The 
gaze was sad in its still thoughtfulness, such as our feelings 
translate of the light of evening. 

She ceased, and he said, “You sing on the night of the 
fifteenth ?” 

“ I do, signore.” 

“ It is your first appearance ?” 

She bent her head. 

“ And you will be prepared on that night to sing this 
song ?” 

“ Yes, signore.” 

“ Save in the event of your being forbidden ?” 

“ Unless you shall forbid me, I will sing it, signore.” 

“ Should they imprison you ?-” 

“ If they shoot me I shall be satisfied to know that I have 
sung a song that cannot be forgotten.” 

The Chief took her hand in a gentle grasp. 

“ Such as you will help to give our Italy freedom. You 
hold the sacred flame, and know you hold it in trust.” 

“Friends,”—he turned to his companions,—“you have 
heard what will be the signal for Milan.” 


CHAPTER ly. 

AMMIANi’s INTEECESSION, 

It was a surprise to all of them, save to Agostino 
Balderini, who passed his inspecting glance from face to 




AMMIANI’S INTEECESSION. 


25 


face, marking tlie eifect of the announcement. Corte gazed 
at her heavily, but not altogether disapprovingly. Giulio 
Bandinelli and Marco Sana, though evidently astonished, 
and to some extent incredulous, listened like the perfectly 
trusty lieutenants in an enterprise which they were. But 
Carlo Ammiani stood horror-stricken. The blood had left 
his handsome young olive-hued face, and his eyes were on 
the signorina, large with amazement, from which they 
deepened to piteousness of entreaty. 

“ Signorina !—you ! Can it be true ? Do you know ?— 
do you mean it ?” 

“ What, sig'nor Carlo ?” 

“ This ;—will you venture to do such a thing ?” 

“ Oh, will I venture ? What can you think of me ? It 
is my own request.” 

“ But, signorina, in mercy, listen, and consider.” 

Carlo turned impetuously to the Chief. “ The signorina 
can’t know the danger she is running. She will be seized 
on the boards, and shut up between four walls before a man 
of us will be ready,—or more than one,” he added softly. 
“ The house is sure to be packed for a first night; and the 
Polizia have a suspicion of her. She has been off her guard 
in the Conservatorio; she has talked of a country called 
Italy ; she has been indiscreet;—pardon, pardon, signorina! 
but it is true that she has spoken out from her noble heart. 
And this opera! Are they fools ?—they must see through 
it. It will never,—it can’t possibly be reckoned on to appear. 
I knew that the signorina was heart and soul with us ; but 
who could guess that her object was to sacrifice herself in 
the front rank,—to lead a forlorn hope! I tell you it’s like 
a Pagan rite. You are positively slaying a victim. I beg 
you all to look at the case calmly!” 

A burst of laughter checked him ; for his seniors by many 
years could not hear such veteran’s counsel from a hurried 
boy without being shrewdly touched by the humour of it, 
while one or two threw a particular irony into their tones. 

“ When we do slay a victim, we will come to you as our 
augur, my Carlo,” said Agostino. 

Corte was less gentle. As a Milanese and a mere youth 
Ammiani was antipathetic to Corte, who closed his laughter 
with a windy rattle of his lips, and a “ pish!” of some 
emphasis. 


2G 


VITTOEIA. 


Carlo was quick to give him a challenging frown. 

“ What is it Corte bent his head back, as if in¬ 
quiringly. 

- “ It’s I who claim that question by right,” said Carlo. 

“ You are a boy.” 

“ I have studied war.” 

“ In books.” 

“ With brains, Colonel Corte.” 

“War is a matter of blows, my little lad.” 

“ Let me inform you, signor Colonel, that war is not a 
game between bulls, to be played with the horns of the 
head.” 

“ You are prepared to instruct me ?” The fiery Berga- 
masc lifted his eyebrows. ‘ 

“ N’ay, nay!” said Agostino. “ Between us two first;” 
and he grasped Carlo’s arm, saying in an underbreath, 

“ Your last retort was too long-winded. In these conflicts 
you must be quick, sharp as a rifle-crack that hits echo on 
the breast-bone and makes her cry out. I correct a student 
in the art of war.” Then aloud : “ My opera, young man ! 
—-well, it’s my libretto, and you know we writers always 
say ‘ my opera’ when we have put the pegs for the voice; 
you are certainly aware that we do. How dare you to make 
calumnious observations upon niy opera ? Is it not the ripe 
and admirable fruit of five years of confinement ? Are not 
the lines sharp, the stanzas solid ? and the stuff, is it not 
good ? Is not the subject simple, pure from offence to 
sensitive authority, constitutionally harmless ? Reply !” 

“ It’s transparent to any but asses,” said Carlo. 

“ But if it has passed the censorship ? You are guilty, 
my boy, of bestowing upon those highly disciplined gentle¬ 
men who govern your famous city—what title ? I trust a 
prophetic one, since that it comes from an animal whose 
custom is to turn its back before it delivers a blow, and is, 
they remark, fonder of encountering dead lions than live 
ones. Still, it is you who are indiscreet,—eminently so, I 
must add, if you will look lofty. If my opera has passed 
the censorship ! eh, what have you to say ?” 

Carlo endured this banter till the end of it came. 

“ And you—you encourage her !” he cried' wrathfully. 
“You know what the danger is for her, if they once lay 
hands on her. They will have her in Verona in four-and- 


AMMIANi’S INTEECESSIOTT. 


27 


twenty lioni’S; tlirougli the gates of the Adige in a couple 
of days, and at Spielberg, or some other of their infernal 
dens of groans, within a week. Where is the chance of a 
rescue then ? They torture, too,—they torture ! It’s a 
woman ; and insult will be one mode of torturing her. They 
can use rods-” 

The excited Southern youth was about to cover his face, 
but caught back his hands, clenching them. 

“ All this,” said Agostino, “ is an evasion, manifestly, of 
the question concerning my opera, on which you have 
thought proper to cast a slur. The phrase, ‘ transparent to 
any but asses,’ may not be absolutely objectionable, for 
transparency is, as the critics rightly insist, meritorious in 
a composition. And, according to the other view, if we 
desire our clever opponents to see nothing in something, it 
is notably skilful to let them see through it. You perceive, 
my Carlo. Transparency, then, deserves favourable com¬ 
ment. So, I do not complain of your phrase, but I had the 
unfortunate privilege of hearing it uttered. The method 
of delivery scarcely conveyed a compliment. Will you 
apologize ?” 

Carlo burst from him with a vehement question to the 
Chief : “ Is it decided ? ” 

“ It is, my friend ; ” was the reply. 

“ Decided ! She is doomed ! Signorina ! what ca,n you 
know of this frightful risk ? You are going to the slaughter. 
Wou will be seized before the first verse is out of your lips, 
and once in their clutches, you will never breathe free air 
again. It’s madness !—ah, forgive me !—yes, madness ! For 
you shut your eyes ; you rush into the trap blindfolded. 
And that is how you serve our Italy ! She sees you an 
instant, and you are caught away ;—and you who might 
serve her, if you would, do you think you can move dungeon 
walls ? ” 

“ Perhaps, if I have been once seen, I shall not be for¬ 
gotten,” said the signorina smoothly, and then cast her eyes 
down, as if she felt the burden of a little possible accusation 
of vanity in this remark. She raised them with fire. 

“No; never!” exclaimed Carlo. “But, now you are 
ours. And—surely it is not quite decided ? ” 

He had spoken imploringly to the Chief “ Not irrevo¬ 
cably ? ” he added. 



28. 


VITTOEIA. 


“ IrreYOcably! ” 

“ Then she is lost! ’* 

“ For shame, Carlo Ammiani; ” said old Agostino, casting 
his sententious humours aside. “ Do you not heai* ? It is 
decided ! Do you wish to rob her of her courage, and see 
her tremble? It’s her scheme and mine:' a case where 
an old head approves a young one. The Chief-says Yes! 
and you bellow still 1 Is it a Milanese trick ? Be silent.” 

“ Be silent I ” echoed Carlo. “ Do you remember the beast 
Marschatska’s bet ? ” The allusion was to a black incident 
concerning a young Italian ballet girl who had been carried 
off by an Austrian officer, under the pretext of her complicity 
in one of the antecedent conspiracies. 

“ He rendered payment for it,” said Agostino. 

“He perished; yes! as we shake dust to the winds; but 
she !—it’s terrible 1 You place women in the front ranks— 
girls! What can defenceless creatures do ? Would you 
let the van-regiment in battle be the one without weapons ? 
It’s slaughter. She’s like a lamb to them. You hold up 
your jewel to the enemy, and cry, ‘ Come and take it.’ 
Think of the insults 1 think of the rough hands, and foul 
mouths 1 She will be seized on the boards-” 

“ Hot if you keep your tongue from wagging,” interposed 
Ugo Corte, fevered by this unseasonable exhibition of what 
was to him manifestly a lover’s frenzied selfishness. He 
moved off, indifferent to Carlo’s retort. Marco Sana and 
Giulio Bandinelli were already talking aside with the Chief. 

“ Signor Carlo, not a hand shall touch me,” said the 
signorina. “ And I am not a lamb, though it is good of you 
to think me one. I passed through the streets of Milan in 
the last rising. I w'as unharmed. You must have some 
confidence in me.” 

“ Signorina, there’s the danger,” rejoined Carlo. “ You 
trust to your good angels once, twice—the third time they 
fail you 1 What are you among a host of armed savages ? 
You would be tossed like weed, on the sea. In pity, do not 
look so scornfully! Ho, there is no unjust meaning in it; 
but you despise me for seeing danger. Can nothing persuade 
you ? And, besides,” he addressed the Chief, who alone 
betrayed no signs of weariness; “ listen, I beg of you. 

Milan wants no more than a signal. She does not require 
to be excited. I came charged with several propositions for 



AMMIANi’s INTEECESSION. 


29 


giving tlie alarm. Attend, yon otliers! The night of the 
Fifteenth comes ; it is passing like an ordinary night. At 
twelve a fire-balloon is seen in the sky. Listen, in the name 
of saints and devils ! ” 

But even the Chief was observed to show signs of amuse¬ 
ment, and the gravity of the rest forsook them altogether at 
the display of this profound and original conspiratorial 
notion. 

“ Excellent! excellent! my Carlo,” said old Agostino, 
cheerfully. “ You have thought. You must have thought, 
or whence such a conception ? But, you really mistake. It 
is not the garrison whom we desire to put on their guard. 
By no means. We are not in the Imperial pay. Probably 
your balloon is to burst in due time, and, wind permitting, 
disjierse printed papers all over the city ? ” 

“ What if it is ? ” cried Carlo fiercely. 

“ Exactly. I have divined your idea. You have thought, 
or, to correct the tense, are thinking, which is more hopeful, 
though it may chance not to seem so meritorious. But, if 
yours are the ideas of full-blown jackets, bear in mind 
that our enemies are coated and breeched. It may be 
creditable to you that your cunning is not the cunning of the 
serpent; to us it would be more valuable if it were. Con¬ 
tinue.” 

“ Oh ! there are a thousand ways.” Carlo controlled him¬ 
self Tvith a sharp screw of all his muscles. “ I simply wish 
to save the signorina from an annoyance.” 

“Very mildly put,” Agostino murmured assentingly. 

“In our Journal,” said Carlo, holding out the palm of one 
hand to dot the forefinger of the other across it, by way of 
personal illustration—“ in our Journal we might arrange for 
certain letters to recur at distinct intervals in Roman 
capitals, which might spell out, ‘ this night at twelve,’ or 
‘atone.’ 

“ Quite as ingenious, but on the present occasion erring on 
the side of intricacy. Aha ! you want to increase the sale of 
your Journal, do you, my boy ? The rogue !” 

With which, and a light slap over Carlo’s shoulder, 
Agostino left him. 

The aspect of his own futile propositions stared the young 
man in the face too forcibly for him to nurse the spark of 
resentment which was struck out in the turmoil of his 


30 


VITTORIA. 


\ 

bosom. He veered, as if to follow Agostino, and remained 
midway, his chest heaving, and his eyelids shut. 

“ Signor Carlo, I have not thanked jmu.” He heard 
Vittoria speak. “ I know that a woman should never 
attempt to do men’s work. The Chief will tell you that we 
must all serve now, and all do our best. If we fail, and they 
put me to great indignity, 1 promise you that I will not live. 

I would give this up to be done by any one else who could do 
it better. It is in my hands, and my friends must encourag;e 
me.” 

“ Ah, signorina!” the young man sighed bitterly. The 
knowledge that he had already betrayed himself in the pre¬ 
sence of others too far, and the sob in his throat labouring 
to escape, kept him still. 

A warning call from Ugo Corte drew their attention. 
Close by the chalet where the first climbers of the mountain 
had refreshed themselves, Beppo was seen struggling to 
secure the arms of a man in a high-crowned green Swiss hat, 
who was apparently disposed to give the signorina’s faithful 
servant some trouble. After gazing a minute at this sin¬ 
gular contention, she cried— 

“ It’s the same who follows me everywhere !” 

“ And you will not believe you are suspected,” murmured 
Carlo in her ear. 

“ A spy f”’ Sana queried, showing keen joy at the prospect 
of scotching such a reptile on the lonely height. 

Corte went up to the Chief. They spoke briefly together, 
making use of notes and tracings on paper. The Chief then 
said “ Adieu” to the signorina. It was explained to the rest 
by Corte that he had a meeting to attend near Pella about 
noon, and must be in Fobello before midnight. Thence his 
way would be to Genoa. 

“ So, you are resolved to give another trial to our crowned 
ex-Carbonaro,” said Agostino. 

“ Without leaving him an initiative this time!” and the 
Chief embraced the old man. “ You know me upon that 
point. I cannot trust him. I do not. But, if we make such 
a tide in Lombardy that his army must be drawn into it, is 
such an army to be refused? First, the tide, my friend! 
See to that.” 

“ The king is our instrument!” cried Carlo Ammiani, 
brightening. 


TEE SPY. 31 

“ Yes, if we were particularly well skilled in the use of 
that kind of instrument,” Agostino muttered. 

He stood apart while the Chief said a few words to Carlo, 
which made the blood play vividly across the visage of the 
youth. Carlo tried humbly to expostulate once or twice. 
In the end his head was bowed, and he signified a dumb 
acquiescence. 

“ Once more, good-bye.” The Chief addressed the signorina 
in English. 

She replied in the same tongue, “ Good-bye,” tremulously; 
and passion mounting on it, added—“ Oh ! when shall I see 
you again ?” 

“ When Rome is purified to be a fit place for such as 
you.” 

In another minute he was hidden on the slope of the 
mountain lying toward Orta. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE SPY. 

Reppo had effected a firm capture of his man someway' 
down the slope. But it was a case of check that entirely 
precluded his own free movements. They hung together 
intertwisted in the characters of specious pacificator and . 
appealing citizen, both breathless. 

“ There ! you want to hand me up neatly; I know^your 
vanity, my Beppo ; and you don’t even know my name,” said 

the prisoner. , i -r> 

“ I know your ferret of a face well enough, _ said Beppo. 
“You dog the signorina. Come up, and don’t give trouble. 

“ Am I not a sheep ? You worry me. Let me go.” 

“You’re a wriggling eel.” i 

“ Catch me fast by the tail then, and don t hold me by 
the middle.” 

“ You want frightening, my pretty fellow! . , . 

“ If that’s true, my Beppo, somebody made a mistake in 
sending you to do it. Stop a moment. You re blown. I 



32 


VITTORIA. 


think you gulp down your minestra too hot; you drink 
beer.” 

“You dog the signorina! I swore to scotch you at last.” 

“ I left Milan for the purpose—don’t you see ? Act fairly, 
my Beppo, and let us go up to the signorina together 
decently.” 

“ Ay, ay, my little reptile! You’ll find no Austrians here. 
Cry put to them to come to you from Laveno. If the Motte- 
rone grew just one tree ! Saints ! one would serve.” 

“ Why don’t you—fool that you are, my Beppo !—pray to 
the saints earlier ? Trees don’t grow from heaven.” 

“ You’ll be going there soon, and you’ll know better about 
it.” 

“ Thanks to the Virgin, then, we shall part at some time 
or other!” 

The struggles between them continued sharply during,this 
exchange of intellectual shots ; but hearing Ugo Corte’a 
voice, the prisoner’s confident audacity forsook him, and he 
drew a long tight face like the mask of an admonitory 
exclamation addressed to himself from within. 

“ Stand up straight!” the soldier’s command was uttered. 

Even Beppo was amazed to see that the man had lost the 
power to obey or to speak. 

Corte grasped him under the arm-pit. With the force of 
his huge fist he swung him round and stretched him out 
at arm’s length, all collar and shanks. The man hung like 
a mole from the twig. Yet, while Beppo poured out the 
tale of his iniquities, his eyes gave the turn of a twinkle, 
showing that he could have answered one whom he did not 
fear. The charge brought against him was, that for the 
last six months he had been untiringly spying on the 
signorina. 

Corte stamped his loose feet to earth, shook him and told 
him to walk aloft. The flexible voluble fellow had evidently 
become miserably disconcerted^ Be walked in trepidation, 
speechless, and when interrogated on the height his eyes 
flew across the angry visages with dismal uncertainty. 
Agostino perceived that he had undoubtedly not expected to 
come among them, and forthwith began to excite Giulio and 
Marco to the worst suspicions, in order to indulge his royal 
poetic soul with a study of a timorous wretch pushed to 
anticipations of extremity. 


THE SPY. 


33 


“The execntion of a spy,” he preluded, “is the signal for 
the ringing of joy-bells on this earth ; not only becanse he 
is one of a pestiferous excess, in point of numbers, but that 
he is no true son of earth. He escaped out of hell’s doors 
on a windy day, and all that we do is to puff out a bad light, 
and send him back. Look at this fellow in whom conscience 
is operating so that he appears like a corked volcano ! You 
can see that he takes Austrian money ; his skin has got to 
be the exact colour of Miinz. He has the greenish-yellow 
eyes ,of those elective, thrice-abhorred vampyres who feed 
on patriot-blood. He is condemned without trial by his 
villanous countenance, like an ungrammatical preface to a 
book. His tongue refuses to confess, but nature is stronger: 
—observe his knees. How this is guilt. It is execrable 
guilt. He is a nasty object. Hature has in her wisdom 
shortened his stature to indicate that it is left to us to 
shorten the growth of his offending years. How, you dang- 
linsf soul! answer me:—what name hailed you when on 
earth ?” 

The man, with no clearly serviceable tongue, articulated, 
“Luigi.” 

“ Luigi ! the name Christian and distinctive. The name 
historic:—Luigi Porco ?” 

“ Luigi Saracco, signore.” 

“ Saracco : Saracco : very possibly a strip of the posterity 
of cut-throat Moors. To judge by your face, a Moor un¬ 
doubtedly : glib, slippery! with a body that slides and a 
soul that jumps. Taken altogether, more serpent than 
eagle. I misdoubt that little quick cornering eye of yours. 
Do you ever remember to have blushed ?” 

“ Ho, signore,” said Luigi. 

“ You spy upon the signorina, do you ?” 

“ You have Beppo’s word for that,” interposed Marco 
Sana, growling.' 

“ And you are found spying on the mountain this parti¬ 
cular day! Luigi Saracco, you are a fellow of a tremendous 
composition. A goose w-alking into a den of foxes is alone 
to be compared to you,—if ever such goose was! How many 
of us did you count, now, when you were, say, a quarter of a 
mile below ?” 

Marco interposed again: “ He has already seen enough up 
here to make a rope of florins.” 

D 


34 


VITTOEIA. 


“ The fellow’s eye takes likenesses,” said Ginlio. 

Agostino’s question was repeated by Corte, and so sternly 
that Luigi, beholding kindness upon no other face save 
Vittoria’s, watched her, and muttering “ Six,” blinked his 
keen black eyes piteously to get her sign of assent to his 
hesitated naming of that number. Her mouth and the turn 
of her head were expressive to him, and he cried “ Seven.” 

“ So ; first six, and next seven,” said Corte. 

“ Six, I meant, without the signorina,” Luigi explained. 

“ You saw six of us without the signorina ! You see we 
are six here, infcluding the signorina. Where is the 
seventh ?” 

Luigi tried to penetrate Yittoria’s eyes for a proper 
response; but she understood the grave necessity for getting 
the full extent of his observations out of him, and she looked 
as remorseless as the men. He feigned stupidity and sullen¬ 
ness, rage and cunning, in quick succession. 

“ Who was the seventh ?” said Carlo. 

“ Was it the king ?” Luigi asked. 

This was by just a little too clever; and its cleverness, 
being seen, magnified the intended evasion so as to make it 
appear to them that Luigi knew well the name of the 
seventh. 

Marco thumped a hand on his shoulder, shouting— 

“ Here; speak out ! You saw seven of us. Where has 
the seventh one gone F” 

Luigi’s wits made a dash at honesty. “ Down Orta, 
signore.” 

“ And down Orta, I think, you will go; deeper down than 
you may like.” 

Corte now requested Vittoria to stand aside. He motioned 
to her with his hand to stand farther, and still farther off ; 
and finally told Carlo to escort her to Baveno. She now 
began to think that the man Luigi was in some perceptible 
danger, nor did Ammiani disperse the idea. 

“If he is a spy, and if he has seen the Chief, we shall 
have to detain him for at least four and twenty hours,” he 
said, “ or do ’vforse.” 

“But, Signor Carlo,”—Vittoria made appeal to his 
humanity,—“ do they mean, if they decide that he is guilty, 
to hurt him?” •' 


THE SPY. 


35 


Tell me, signorina, what punishment do you imagine a 
spy deserves?” 

“ To be called one!” 

Carlo smiled at her lofty method of dealing with the 
animal. 

“ Then you presume him to have a conscience ?” 

“I am sure, Signor Carlo, that I could make him loathe to 
be called a spy.” 

They were slowly pacing from the group, and were on the 
edge of the descent, when the signorina’s name was shrieked 
by Luigi. The man came running to her for protection, 
Beppo and the rest at his heels. She allowed him to grasp 
her hand. 

“After all, he is my spy; he does belong to me,” she said, 
still speaking on to Carlo. “ I must beg your permission. 
Colonel Corte and Signor Marco, to try an experiment. The 
Signor Carlo will not believe that a spy can be ashamed of 
his name.—Luigi!” 

“ Signorina!”—he shook his body over her hand with a 
most plaintive utterance. 

“You are my countryman, Luigi ?” 

“Yes, signorina.” 

“You are an Italian ?” 

“ Certainly, signorina!” 

Vittoria had not always to lift her voice in music for it to 
sway the hearts of men. She spoke the word very simply 
in a mellow soft tone. Luigi’s blood shot purple. He 
thrust his fists against his ears. 


“ See, Signor Carlo,” she said; “ I was right. Luigi, you 
will be a spy no more ?” 

Carlo Ammiani happened to be rolling a cigarette-paper. 
She put out her fingers for it, and then reached it to Luigi, 
w'ho accepted it with singular contortions of his frame, 
declaring that he would confess everything to her. “ Yes, 
signorina, it is true; I am a spy on you. I know the houses 
you visit. I know you eat too much chocolate for your 
voice. I know you are the friend of the signora Laura, the 
widow of Giacomo Piaveni, shot—shot on Annunciation 
Day. The Virgin bless him t , I Lppw the turning of every 
street from your house near the Dubmo to the signora’s. 
You go nowhere e)se,^except ’to the nfaestro’s. And it’s 




36 


VITTORIA. 


something to spy upon you. But think of your Beppo who 
spies upon me! And your little mother, the lady most 
excellent, is down in Baveno, and she is always near you 
when you make an expedition. Signorina, I know you would 
not pay your Beppo for spying upon me. Why does he do 
it? I do not sing ‘Italia, Italia shall be free!’ I have 
heard you when I was under the maestro’s windows; and 
once you sang it to the Signor Agostino Balderini. Indeed, 
signorina, I am a sort of guardian of your voice. It is 
not gold of the Tedeschi I get from the signor Antonio-- 
Pericles-” , 

At the mention of this name, Agostino and Yittoria 
laughed out. 

“ You are in the pay of the signor Antonio-Pericles,” said 
Agostino. “ Without being in our pay, you have done us 
the service to come up here among us ? Bravo ! In return 
for your disinterestedness, we kick you down, either upon 
Baveno or upon Stresa, or across the lake, if you prefer it. 

' —The man is harmless. He is hired by a particular 
worshipper of the signorina’s voice, who affects to have first 
discovered it when she was in England, and is a connoisseur, 
a millionaire, a Greek, a rich scoundrel, with one indubitable 
passion, for which I praise him. We will let his paid eaves¬ 
dropper depart, I think. He is harmless.” 

Neither Ugo nor Marco were disposed to allow any de¬ 
scription of spy to escape unscotched. Yittoria saw that 
Luigi’s looks were against him, and whispered: “ Why do 
you show such cunning eyes, Luigi ?” 

He replied: “Signorina, take me out of their hearing, 
and I will tell you everything.” 

She walked aside. He seemed immediately to be inspired 
with confidence, and stretched his fingers in the form of a 
grasshopper, at which sight they cried : “ He loiows Barto 
Bizzo—this rascal!” They plied him with signs and 
countersigns, and speedily let him go. There ensued a 
sharp snapping of altercation between Luigi and Beppo. 
Yittoria had to order Beppo to stand back. 

“ It is a poor dog, not of a good breed, signorina,” Luigi 
said, casting a tolerant glance over his shoulder. “ Faithful, 
blit a poor nose. Ah ! you gave me this cigarette. Not the 
Yirgin could have touched my marrow as ^mu did. That’s 
to be remembered by-and-by. Now, you are going to sing 



THE SPY. 


37 


on the nio-ht of the fifteenth of September. Change that 
night. The signor Antonio-Pericles watches yon, and he is 
a friend of the Government, and the Government is snoring 
for yon to think it asleep. The signor Antonio-Pericles 
pacifies the Tedeschi, bnt he will know all that yon are 
doing, and how easy it will be, and how simple, for yon to 
let me know what yon think he onght to know, and jnst 
enongh to keep him comfortable! So we work like a 
machine, signorina. Only, not throngh that Beppo, for he 
is vain of his legs, and his looks, and his service, and becanse 
he has carried a gnn and heard it go off. Yes ; I am a spy. 
Bnt I am honest. I, too, have visited England. One can 
be honest and a spy. Signorina, I have two arms, bnt only 
one heart. If yon will be gracions and consider! Say, here 
are two hands. One hand does this thing, one hand dees 
that thing, and that thing wipes ont this thing. It amonnts 
to clear reasoning! Here^are two eyes. Were they meant 
to see nothing bnt one side ! Here is a tongne with a line 
down the middle almost to the tip of it—which is for service. 
That Beppo conldn’t deal donble, if he wonld; for he is 
imperfectly designed—a mere dog’s pattern 1 Bnt, only 
one heart, signorina—mind that. I will never forget the 
cigarette. I shall smoke it before I leave the monntain, 
and think—oh!” 

Having illnstrated the philosophy of his system, Lnigi 
continned : “ I am going to tell yon everything. Pray, do 
not look on Beppo ! This is important. The signor Antonio- 
Pericles sent me to spy on yon, becanse he expects some 
people to come np the monntain, and yon know them; and 
one is an Anstrian officer, and he is an Englishman by birth, 
and he is coming to meet some English friends who enter 
Italy from Switzerland over the More, and easily np here on 
mnles or donkeys from Pella. The signor Antonio-Pericles 
has gold ears for everything that concerns the signorina. 
‘A patriot is she!’ he says ; and he is jealons of yonr English 
friends. He thinks they will distract yon from yonr stndies ; 
and perhaps ”—Lnigi nodded sagaciously before he per¬ 
mitted himself to say—“perhaps he is jealons in another 
way. I have heard him speak like a sonnet of the signorina’s 
b^anty. The signor Antonio Pericles thinks that yon have 
come here to-day to meet them. When he heard that yon 
were going to leave Milan for Boveno, he was mad, and with 


38 


VITTOEIA. 


two fists up, against all English persons. The Englishman 
who is an Austrian officer is quartered at Verona, and the 
signor Antonio-Pericles said that the Englishman should not 
meet you yet, if he could help it.” 

Vittoria stood brooding. “ Who can it be,—w'ho is an 
Englishman, and an Austiian ofiicer, and knows me ? ” 

“ Signorina, I don’t know names. Behold, that Beppo is 
approaching like the snow! What I entreat is, that the 
signorina wdll wait a little for the English party, if they 
come, so that I may have something to tell my patron. 
To invent upon nothing is most unpleasant, and the signor 
Antonio can soon perceive whether one swims with corks. 
Signorina, I can dance on one rope—I am a man. I am 
not a midge—I cannot dance upon nothing.” 

The days of Yittoria’s youth had been passed in England 
It was not unknown to her that old English friends w^ere on 
the way to Italy ; the recollection of a quiet and a buried 
time put a veil across her features. She was perplexed 
by the mention of the Austrian officer by Luigi, as one may 
be who divines the truth too surely, but will not accept it 
for its loathsomeness. There were Englishmen in the army 
of Austria. Could one of them be this one w'hom she had 
cared for "when she w^as a girl ? It seemed hatefully cruel 
to him to believe it. She spoke to Agostino, begging him to 
remain with her on the height awhile to^ see whether the 
signor Antonio-Pericles was right; to see whether Luigi 
w’as a truth-teller; to see whether these English persons 
were really coming. “ Because,” she said, “ if they do 
come, it wdll at once dissolve any suspicions you may have 
of this Luigi. Aud I always long so much to know if 
the signor Antonio is correct. I have never yet known 
him to be ’wrong.” 

“ And you want to see these English,” said Agostino. He 
frowned. 

“ Only to hear them. They shall not recognize me. I 
have now another name ; and I am changed. My hat is 
enough to hide me. Let me hear them talk a little. You 
and the sigTior Carlo wdll stay with me, and when they come,' 
if they do come, I wdll remain no longer than just sufficient 
to make sure. I would refuse to know any of them before 
the night of the fifteenth ; I want my strength too much. 
I shall have to hear a misery from them;—I know it; I 


THE SPY. 


S9 


feel it; it turns my Hood. But let me hear their voices ! 
England is half my country, though I am so willing to 
forget her and give all my life to Italy. Stay with me, dear 
friend, my best father ! humour me, for you know that I am 
always charming when I am humoured,” 

Agostino pressed his finger on a dimple in her cheeks. 
“ You can alford to make such a confession as that to a 
greybeard. The day is your own. Bear in mind that you 
are so situated that it will be prudent for you to have no 
fresh relations, either with foreigners or others, until your 
work is done,—in which, my dear child, may God bless 
you !” 

“ I pray to him with all my might,” Vittoria said in reply. 

After a consultation with Agostino, XJgo Corte and Marco 
and Giulio bade their adieux to her. The task of keeping 
Luigi from their clutches was difficult; but Agostino helped 
her in that also. To assure them, after his fashion, of the 
harmlessness of Luigi, he seconded him in a contest of wit 
against Beppo, and the little fellow, now that he had shaken 
off his fears, displayed a quickness of retort and a liveliness 
“ unknown to professional spies and impossible to the race,” 
said Agostino; “ so absolutely is the mind of man blunted 
by Austrian gold. We know that for a fact. Beppo is no 
match for him. Beppo is sententious ; ponderously illustra¬ 
tive ; he can’t turn; he is long-winded; he, I am afraid, my 
Carlo, studies the journals. He has got your journalistic 
style, wherein words of six syllables form the relief to words 
■ of eight, and hardly one dares to stand by itself. They are 
like huge boulders across a brook. The meaning, do you see, 
would run of itself, but you give us these impedimenting 
big stones to help us over it, while we profess to understand 
you by implication. For my part, I own, that to me, your 
parliamentary, illegitimate academic, modern crocodile 
phraseology, which is formidable in the jaws, impenetrable 
on the back, can’t circumvent a corner, and is enabled to 
enter a common understanding solely by having a special 
highway prepared for it,—in short, the^ writing in your 
journals is too much for me. Beppo here is an example that 
the style is useless for controversy. This Luigi baftles him 
at every step.” 

“ Some,” rejoined Carlo, “ say that Beppo has had the 
• virtue to make you his study.” 


40 


VITTOEIA. 


Agostino tlirew himself on his hack and closed his eyes. 
“ That, then, is more than yon ha ve done, signor Tuquoque. 
Look on the Bernina yonder, and i ancy yon behold a ront of 
phantom Goths; a sleepy ront, new risen, wdth the blood of 
old battles on their shrond-shirts, and a North-east wind 
blowing them npon onr fat land. Or take a tnrn at the 
other side toward Orta, and look ont for another invasion, 
by means so pictnresqne, bnt preferable. Tonrists ! Do yon 
hear them ?” 

Carlo Ammiani had descried the advanced troop of a 
procession of gravely-heated climbers—ladies npon donkeys, 
and pedestrian gnards stalking beside them, with conrier, 
and lacqneys, and baskets of provisions, all bearing the 
stamp of pilgrims from the great Western Island. 


CHAPTER YI. 

THE WARNING. 

A MOUNTAIN ascended by these children of the forcible 
Isle, is a monntain to be captnred, and colonized, and 
absolntely occnpied for a term; so that Yittoria soon fonnd 
herself and her small body of adherents observed, and even 
exclaimed against, as a sort of intrnding aborigines, whose 
presence entirely dispelled the sense of romantic dominion 
which a mighty eminence should give, and which Britons 
expect when they have expended a portion of their energies. 
The exclamations were not complimentary; nevertheless, 
Yittoria listened with pleased ears, as one listens by a 
brookside near an old home, hearing a music of memory 
rather than common words. They talked of heat, of appe¬ 
tite, of chill, of thirst, of the splendour of the prospect, of 
the anticipations of good hotel accommodation below, of the 
sadness superinduced by the reflection that in these days 
people were found everywhere, and poetry was thwarted; 
again of heat, again of thirst, of beauty, and of chill. There 
w'as the enunciation of matronly advice ; there was the 
outcry of gi ’l'’sh insubordination; there were sighings for 
English ale, and namings of the visible ranges of peaks, and 



THE WAENING. 


41 


indicatings of geographical fingers to show where Switzer¬ 
land and Piedmont met, and Austria held her grasp on 
Lombardy; and “to this point’we go to-night;'yonder to¬ 
morrow ; farther the next day,” was uttered, soberly or with 
excitement, as befitted the age of the speaker. 

Among these tourists there was one very fair English 
lady, with long auburn curls of the traditionally English 
pattern, and the science of Paris displayed in her bonnet and 
dress; which, if not as graceful as severe admirers of the 
antique in statuary or of the mediaeval in di'apery demand, 
pleads prettily to be thought so, and commonly succeeds in 
its object, when assisted by an artistic feminine manner. 
Vittoria heard her answer to the name of Mrs. Sedley. She 
had once known her as a Miss Adela Pole. Amidst the 
cluster of assiduous gentlemen surrounding this lady it was 
difficult for Vittoria’s stolen glances to discern her husband; 
and the moment she did discern him she became as in¬ 
different to him as was his young wife, by every manifesta¬ 
tion of her sentiments. Mrs. Sedley informed her lord that 
it was not expected of him to care, or to pretend to care, for 
such scenes as the Motterone exhibited; and having dis¬ 
missed him to the shade of an umbrella near the provision 
baskets, she took her station within a few steps of Vittoria, 
and allowed her attendant gentlemen to talk while she re¬ 
mained plunged in a meditative rapture at the prospect. 
The talk indicated a settled scheme for certain members of 
the party to reach Milan from the Como road. Mrs. Sedley 
was asked if she expected her brother to join her here or in 
Milan. 

“ Here, if a man’s promises mean anything,” she replied 
languidly. 

She was told that some one waved a handkerchief to them 
from below. 

“ Is he alone ?” she said; and directing an opera-glass 
upon the slope of the mountain, pursued, as in a dreamy 
disregard of circumstances -That is Captain Gambier. 
My brother Wilfrid has not kept his appointment. Perhaps 
he could not get leave from the General; perhaps he is 
married; he is engaged to an Austrian countess, I have 
heard. Captain'Gambier did me the favour to go round to 
a place called Stresa to meet him. He has undertaken the 
journey for nothing. It is the way with all journeys— 


42 


VITTORIA. 


though this ” (the lady had softly reverted to her rapture)—■ 
“ this is too exquisite ! Nature at least does not deceive.” 

Vittoria listened to a bubbling of meaningless chatter, 
until Captain Gambier had joined Mrs. Sedley; and at him, 
for she had known him likewise, she could not forbear look¬ 
ing up. He was speaking to Mrs. Sedley, but caught the 
look, and bent his head for a clearer view of the features 
under the broad straw hat. Mrs. Sedley commanded him 
imperiously to say on. 

“ Have you no letter from Wilfrid ? Has the mountain 
tired you ? Has Wilfrid failed to send his sister one w'ord ? 
Surely Mr. Pericles will have made known our exact route 
to him ? And his uncle, General Pierson, could—I am cer¬ 
tain he did —exert his influence to procure him leave for a 
single week to meet the dearest member of his family.” 

Captain Gambier gathered his wits to give serviceable 
response to the kindled lady, and letting his eyes fall from 
time to time on the broad straw hat, made answer— 

“ Lieutenant Pierson, or,, in other wmrds, Wilfrid Pole 


The lady stamped her foot and flushed. 

“ You know, Augustus, I detest that name.” 

“ Pardon me a thousandfold. I had forgotten.” 

“ What has happened to you ?” 

Captain Gambier accused the heat. 

“ I found a letter from Wilfrid at the hotel. He is ap¬ 
parently kept on constant service between Milan, and Verona, 
and Venice. His quarters are at Verona. He informs me 
that he is to be married in the Spring; that is, if all con¬ 
tinues quiet; married in the Spring. He seems to fancy that 
there may be disturbances; not of a serious kind, of course. 
He will meet you in Milan. He has never been permitted to 
remain at Milan longer than a couple of days at a stretch. 
Pericles has told him that she is in Florence. Pericles has 
told me that Miss Belloni has removed to Florence.” 

“ Say it a third time,” the lady indulgently remarked. 

“ I do not believe that she has gone.” 

“ I dare say not.” 

“ She has changed her name, you know.” 

“ Oh, dear, yes ; she has done something fantastic, 
naturally! For my part, I should have thought her own 
good enough.” 



THE WARNING. 


43 


“ Emilia Alessandra Belloni is good enough, certainly,” 
said Captain Gambier. ^ 

The shading straw rim had shaken once during the col¬ 
loquy. It was now a fixed defence. 

“ What is her new name ? ” Mrs. Sedley inquired, 

“ That I cannot tell. Wilfrid merely mentions that he has 
not seen her.” 

“ I,” said Mrs. Sedley, “ when I reach Milan, shall not 
trust to Mr. Pericles, but shall write to the Couservatorio; 
for if she is going to be a great cantatrice,—really, it will be 
agreeable to renew acquaintance with her, Nor will it do 
any mischief to Wilfrid, now that he is engaged. Are you 
very deeply attached to straw hats ? They are sweet in a 
landscape.” 

Mrs, Sedley threw him a challenge from her blue eyes; 
but his reply to it was that of an unskilled youth, who reads 
a lady by the letters of her speech :—“ One minute. I will 
be with you instantly. I want to have a look down on the 
lake. I suppose this is one of the most splendid views in 
Italy. Half a minute ! ” 

Captain Gambier smiled brilliantly; and the lady, per¬ 
ceiving that polished shield, checked Gie shot of ifidignation 
on her astonished features, and laid it by. But the astonish¬ 
ment lingered there, like the lines of a slackened bow. She 
beheld her ideal of an English gentleman place himself before 
these recumbent foreign people, and turn to talk across them, 
with a pertinacious pursuit of the face under the bent straw 
hat. Nor was it singular to her that one of them at last 
should rise and protest against the continuation of the imper¬ 
tinence. 

Carlo Ammiani, in fact, had opened matters with a scru- 
pulously-courteous bow. 

“Monsieur is perhaps unaware that he obscures the 
outlook ? ” 

“ Totally, monsieur,” said Captain Gambier, and. stood 
fast. 

“ Will monsieur do me the favour to take three steps either 
to the right or to the left ? ” 

“ Pardon, monsieur, but the request is put almost in the 
form of an order,” 

“ Simply if it should prove inelBcacious in the form of a 
request.” 


44 


VITTORIA. 


“ What, may I ask, monsieur, is your immediate object ? 

“ To entreat you to behave with civility.” 

“ I am at a loss, monsieur, to perceive any offence.” 

“ Permit me to say, it is lamentable you do not know when 
you insult a lady.” 

“ I have insulted a lady ? ” Captain Gambier looked pro¬ 
foundly incredulous. , “ Oh ! then you will not take exception 
to my assuming the privilege to apologize to her in person ?” 

Ammiani arrested him as he was about to pass. 

“ Stay, monsieur; you determine to be impudent, I per¬ 
ceive ; you shall not be obtrusive.” 

Vittoria had tremblingly taken old Agostino’s hand, and 
had risen to her feet. Still keeping her face hidden, she 
walked down the slope, followed at an interval by her ser¬ 
vant, and curiously watched by the English officer, who said 
to himself, “Well, I suppose I was mistaken,” and conse¬ 
quently discovered that he was in a hobble. 

A short duologue in their best stilted French ensued 
between him and Ammiani. It was pitched too high in a 
foreign tongue for Captain Gambier to descend from it, as 
he would fain have done, to ask the lady’s name. They 
exchanged cards and formal salutes, and parted. 

The dignified altercation had been witnessed by the main 
body of the tourists. Captain Gambier told them that he 
had merely interchanged amicable commonplaces with the 
Frenchman,—“ or Italian,” he added carelessly, reading the 
card in his hand. “ I thought she might be somebody whom 
we knew,” he said to Mrs. Sedley. 

“ Not the shadow of a likeness to her,” the lady returned. 

She had another opinion when later a scrap of paper 
bearing one pencilled line on it was handed round. A damsel 
of the party had picked it up near the spot where, as she 
remarked, “ the foreigj'ers had been sitting.” It said 
Let none who look for safety go to Milan.’* 



BARTO RIZZO. 


45 


CHAPTER VII. 

BARTO RIZZO. 

A WEEK following the day of meetings on the Motterone, 
Luigi the spy was in Milan, making his way across the Piazza 
de’ Mercanti. He entered a narrow court, one of those which 
were anciently built upon the Oriental principle of giving 
shade at the small cost of excluding common air. It was 
dusky noon there through the hours of light, and thrice 
night when darkness fell. The atmosphere, during the sun’s 
short passage overhead, hung with a glittering heaviness, 
like the twinkling iron-dust in a subterranean smithy. On 
the lower window of one of the houses there was a board, 
telling men that Barto Rizzo made and mended shoes, and 
requesting people who wished to see him to make much noise 
at the door, for he was hard of hearing. It speedily became 
known in the court that a visitor desired to see Barto Rizzo. 
The noise produced by Luigi was like that of a fanatical 
beater of the tom-tom; he knocked and banged and danced 
against the door, crying out for his passing amusement an 
adaptation of a popular ballad:— 

“ Oh, 'Barto, Barto ! my boot is sadly worn: The toe is 
seen that should be veiled from sight. The toe that 
should be veiled like an Eastern maid; Like a sultan’s 
daughter: Shocking ! shocking! One of a company of ten 
that w'ere living a secluded life in chaste privacy ! Oh, 
Barto, Barto! must I charge it to thy despicable leather or 
to my incessant pilgrimages ? One fair toe! I fear pre¬ 
sently the corruption of the remaining nine: Then, alas! 
what do I go on ? How shall I come to a perfumed end, 
w^ho walk on ten indecent toes ? Well may the delicate gentle¬ 
men sneer at me and scorn me: As for the angelic Lady who 
deigns to look so low, I may say of her that her graciousness 
clothes what she looks at: To her the foot, the leg, the back: 
To her the very soul is bailed : But she is a rarity upon earth. 
Oh, Barto, Barto, she is rarest in Milan ! I might run a day’s 
length and not find her. If, 0 Barto, as my boot hints to 
me, I am about to be stripped of my last covering, I must 
hurry to the inconvenient little chamber of my mother, who 
cannot refuse to acknowledge me as of this pattern: Barto 


46 


VITTOPJA. 


O slioemaker! tKou son of artifice and right-hand-man of 
necessity, preserve me in the fashion of the time: Cobble 
me neatly: A dozen wax threads and 1 am remade :-^Excel- 
lent! I thank yon! Now I can plant my foot bravely : Oh, 
Barto, my shoemaker! between ourselves, it is unpleasant 
in these refined days to be likened at all to that preposterous 
Adam!” 

The omission of the apostrophes to Barto left it one of the 
ironical, veiled Republican, semi-socialistic ballads of the 
time, which were sung about the streets for the sharpness 
and pith of the couplets, and not from a perception of the 
double edge down the length of them. 

As Luigi was coming to the terminating line, the door 
opened. A very handsome sullen young woman, of the dark, 
thick-browed Lombard type, asked what was wanted; at 
the same time the deep voice of a man, conjecturally rising 
from a lower floor, called, and a lock was rattled. The 
woman told Luigi to enter. He sent a glance behind him; 
he had evidently been drained of his sprightliness in a 
second; he moved in with the slackness of limb of a gibbeted 
figure. The door shut; the woman led him downstairs. He 
could not have danced or sung a song now for great pay. 
The smell of mouldiness became so depressing to him that 
the smell of leather struck his nostrils refreshingly. He 
thought: “Oh, Virgin! it’s dark enough to m.ake one believe 
in every single thing they tell us about the saints.” Up in 
the light of day Luigi had a turn for careless thinking on 
these holy subjects. 

Barto Rizzo stood before him in a square of cellarage 
that was furnished with implements of his craft, too dark 
for a clear discernment of features. 

“ So, here you are !” was the greeting Luigi received. 

It was a tremendous voice, that seemed to issue from a 
vast cavity. “Lead the gentleman to my sitting-room,” said 
Barto. Luigi felt the wind of a handkerchief, and guessed 
that his eyes were about to be bandaged by the woman behind 
him. He petitioned to be spared it, on the plea, firstly, that 
it expressed want of confidence; secondly, that it took him 
in the stomach. The handkerchief was tight across his eyes 
while he was speaking. His hand was touched by the woman, 
and he commenced timidly an ascent of stairs. It continued 
so that he would have sworn he was a shorter time going up 


BARTO RIZZO. 


47 


the Motterone; then down, and along a passage; lower down, 
deep into corpse-climate; up again, np another enormous 
mountain; and once more down, as among rats and beetles, 
and down, as among faceless horrors, and down, where all 
things seemed prostrate and with a taste of brass. It was 
the poor fellow’s nervous imagination, preternaturally excited. 
When the handkerchief was caught away, his jaw was shud¬ 
dering, his eyes were sickly; he looked as if impaled on the 
prongs of fright. It required just half a minute to reanimate 
this mercurial creature, when he found himself under the 
light of two lamps, and Barto Rizzo fronting him, in a place 
so like the square of cellarage w^hich he had been led to with 
unbandaged eyes, that it relieved his dread by touching his 
humour. He cried, “ Have I made the journey of the signor 
Capofinale, wRo visited the other end of the world by stand¬ 
ing on his head ?” 

Barto Rizzo rolled out a burly laugh. 

“ Sit,” he said. “ You’re a poor sweating body, and must 
needs have a dry tongue. Will you drink ?” i 

“Dry !” quoth Luigi. “Holy San Carlo is a mash in a 
wine-press compared with me.” 

Barto Rizzo handed him a liquor, which he drank, and 
after gave thanks to Providence. Barto raised his hand. 

“We’re too low down here for that kind of machinery,” 
he said. “ They say that Providence is on the side of the 
Austrians. Now then, what have you to communicate to 
me ? This time I let you come to my house : trust at all, 
trust entirely. I think that’s the proverb. You are 
admitted speak like a guest.” 

Luigi’s preference happened to be for categorical interro¬ 
gations. Never having an idea of spontaneously telling the 
whole truth, the sense that he w^as undertaking a narrative 
gave him such emotions as a bad swimmer upon deep seas 
may have; while, on the other hand, his being subjected to 
a series of questions seemed at least to leave him with one 
leg on shore, for then he could lie discreetly, and according 
to the finger-posts, and only when necessary, and he could 
recover himself if he made a false step. His ingenious mind 
reasoned these images out to his own satisfaction. He 
requested, therefore, that his host would let him hear what 
he desired to know. 

Barto Rizzo’s forefinger was pressed from an angle into 


48 


VITTORIA. 


one temple. His head inclined to meet it: so that it was 
like the support to a broad blunt pillar. The cropped head 
was flat as an owl’s; the chest of immense breadth ; the 
bulgy knees and big hands were those of a dwarf-athlete. 
Strong colour, lying full on him from the neck to the fore¬ 
head, made the big veins purple and the eyes fierier than 
the movements of his mind would have indicated. He was 
simply studying the character of his man. Luigi feared 
him; he was troubled chiefly because he was unaware of 
what Barto Rizzo wanted to know, and could not conse¬ 
quently tell what to bring to the market. The simplicity 
of the questions put to him were bewildering; he fell into 
the trap. Barto’s eyes began to get terribly oblique. 
Jingling money in his pocket, he said— 

“ You saw Colonel Corte on the Motterone: you saw the 
Signor Agostino Balderini: good men, both ! Also young 
Count Ammiani: I served his father, the General, and 
jogged the lad on my knee. You saw the Signorina Vittoria. 
The English people came, and you heard them talk, but did 
not understand. You came home and told all this to the 
Signor Antonio, your employer number one. You have told 
the same to me, your employer number two. There’s your 
pay.” 

Barto summed up thus the information he had received, 
and handed Luigi six gold pieces. The latter, springing 
with boyish thankfulness and pride at the easy earning of 
them, threw in a few additional facts, as, that he had been 
taken for a spy by the conspirators, and had heard one of 
the Englishmen mention the Signorina Vittoria’s English 
name. Barto Rizzo lifted his eyebrows queerly. “We’ll go 
through another interrogatory in an hour,” he said ; “ stop 
here till I return.” 

Luigi was always too full of his own cunning to suspect 
the same in anof^ier, until he was left alone to reflect on a 
scene ; when it became overwhelmingly transparent. “ But, 
what could I say more than I did say ?” he asked himself, 
as he stared at the one lamp Barto had left. Finding the 
door unfastened, he took the lamp and lighted himself out, 
and along a cavernous passage ending in a blank wall, 
against which his heart knocked and fell, for his sensation 
was immediately the terror of imprisonment and helpless¬ 
ness. Mad with alarm, he tried every spot for an aperture. 


BAP.TO RIZZO. 


4y 

Then he sat down on his haunches; he remembered hearing 
word of Barto Bizzo’s rack:—certain methods peculiar to 
Barto Rizzo, bj which he screwed matters out of his agents, 
and terrified them into fidelity. His personal dealings with 
Barto were of recent date ; but Luigi knew him by repute: 
he knew that the shoemaking business was a mask. 'Barto 
had been a soldier, a schoolmaster: twice an exile; a con¬ 
spirator since the day when the Austrians had the two fine 
Apples of Pomona, Lombardy and Venice, given them as 
fruits of peace. Luigi remembered how he had snapped his 
fingers at the name ot Barto Rizzo. There was no despising 
him now. He could only arrive at a peaceful contemplation 
' of Barto Rizzo’s character by determining to tell all, and 
(since that seemed little) more than he knew. He got back 
to the leather-smelling chamber, which was either the same 
or purposely rendered exactly similar to the one he had first 
been led to. . 

At the end of a leaden hour Barto Rizzo returned. 

“How, to recommence,” he said. “Drink before you 
speak, if your tongue is dry.” 

Luigi tiirust aside the mention of liquor. It seemed to 
him that by doing so he propitiated that ill-conceived 
divinity called Virtue, who lived in the open air, and desired 
men to drink water. Barto Rizzo evidently understood thp 
kind of man he was schooling to his service. 

“ Did that Austrian officer, who is an Englishman 
acquainted with the signor Antonio-Pericles, meet the lady, 
his sister, on the Motterone ?” 

Luigi answered promptly, “ Yes.” 

“ Did the signorina Vittoria speak to the lady 
“ Ho.” 

“ Hot a word ?” 

“ Ho.” 

' “Hot one communication to her ?” 

“ Ho : she sat under her straw hat.’’ 

“ She concealed her face ?” 

“ She sat like a naughty angry girl.” 

“ Did she speak to the ofiicer ?” 

“ Hot she!” 

“ Did she see him ?” 

“ Of course she did! As if a woman’s eyes couldn’t see 
through straw-plait!” 

E 


50 


VITTOBIA. 


Barto paused, calculatinglj, eye on victim. 

“ Tlie signorina Vittoria,” he resumed, “ has engaged to 
Bing on the night of the Fifteenth; has she ?” 

A twitching of Luigi’s muscles showed that he appre¬ 
hended a necessary straining of his invention on anothei 
tack. 

“ On the night of the Fifteenth, signor Barto Bizzo f 
That’s the night of her first appearance. Oh, yes!” 

“ To sing a particular song ?” 

“ Lots of them ! ay-a'ie !” 

Barto took him by the shoulder and pressed him into his 
seat till he howled, saying, “ Now, there’s a slate and a 
pencil. Expect me at the end of two hours, this time. Next 
time it will be four: then eight, then sixteen. Find out 
how many hours that will be at the sixteenth examination.” 

Luigi flew at the torturer and stuck at the length of his 
straightened arm, where he wriggled, refusing to listen tc 
the explanation of Barto’s system: which was that, in cases 
W'here every fresh examination taught him more, they were 
continued, after regularly-lengthening intervals, that might 
extend from the sowing of seed to the ripening of grain. 
“ When all’s delivered,” said Barto, “ then we begin to cor¬ 
rect discrepancies. I expect,” he added, “you and I will 
have done before a week’s out.” 

“ A week!” Luigi shouted. “ Here’s my stomach already 
leaping like a fish at the smell of this hole. You brute bear! 
it’s a smell of bones. It turns my inside with a spoon. May 
the devil seize you when you’re sleeping! You shan’t go: 
I’ll tell you everything—everything. I can’t tell you any¬ 
thing more than I have told you. She gave me a cigarette— 
there I Now you know:—gave me a cigarette ; a cigarette. 
I smoked it—there 1 Your faithful servant!” 

“ She gave ^mu a cigarette, and you smoked it; ha!” said 
Barto Ilizzo, who appeared to see something to weigh even 
in that small fact. “ The English lady gave you the 
cigarette ?” . ° 

Luigi nodded : “Yes;” pertinacious in deception. “Yes,” 
he repeated ; “ the English lady. That was the person. 
What’s the use of your skewering me with your eyes !” 

“ I perceive that you have never travelled, my Luigi,” 
said Barto. “ I am afraid we shall not part so early as I 
had supposed. 1 double the dose, and return to you in four 
hours’ time.” 


BATJTO RIZZO. 


51 


Lnigi threw Inmself flat on the ground, shrieking that he 
was ready to tell everything—anything, ^s'ot even the ap¬ 
parent desperation of his circumstances could teach him that 
a promise to tell the truth was a more direct way of speak¬ 
ing. Indeed, the hitting of the truth would have seemed to 
him a sort of artful archery, the burden of which should 
devolve upon the questioner, whom he supplied with the 
relation of ‘ everything and anything.’ 

All through a night Luigi’s lesson continued. In the 
morning he was still breaking out in small and purposeless 
lies; but Barto Rizzo had accomplished his two objects: 
that of squeezing him, and that of subjecting his imagina¬ 
tion. Luigi confessed (owing to a singular recovery of his 
memory) the gift of the cigarette as coming from the 
signorina Vittoria. What did it matter if she did give him 
a cigarette ? 

“ You adore her for it ?” said Barto. 

“ May the Virgin sweep the floor of heaven into her lap!” 
interjected Luigi. “ She is a good patriot.” 

“ Are you one ?” Barto asked. 

“ Certainly I am.” 

“ Then I shall have to suspect you, for the good of your 
country.” 

Luigi could not see the deduction. He was incapable of 
guessing that it might apply forcibly to Vittoria, who had 
undertaken a grave, perilous, and imminent work. Nothing 
but the spontaneous desire to elude the pursuit of a ques¬ 
tioner had at first instigated his baffling of Barto Rizzo, 
until, fearing the dark square man himself, he feared him 
dimly for Vittoria’s sake; he could not have said why. She 
was a good patriot: wherefore the reason for wishing to 
know more of her ? Barto Rizzo had compelled him at last 
to furnish a narrative of the events of that day on the 
Motterone, and, finding himself at sea, Luigi struck out 
boldly and swam as well as he could. Barto disentangled 
one succinct thread of incidents : Vittoria had been commis¬ 
sioned by the Chief to sing on the night of the Fifteenth; 
she had subsequently, without speaking to any of the Eng¬ 
lish party, or revealing her features—“ keeping them beau¬ 
tifully hidden,” Luigi said, with unaccountable enthusiasm—■ 
written a warning to them that they were to avoid Milan. 
The paper on which the warning had been written was found 


VITTORIA. 


• 52 

by the English when he was the only Italian on the height, 
lying there to observe and note things in the service of 
Barto Rizzo. The writing was English, but when one of the 
English ladies—“who wore her hair like a planed shred of 
wood; like a torn vine ; like a kite with two tails ; like Luxury 
at the Banquet, ready to tumble over marble shoulders” (an 
illustration drawn probably from Luigi’s study of some alle¬ 
gorical picture,—he was at a loss to describe the foreign 
female head-dress)—when this lady had read the Avriting, 
she exclaimed that it was the hand of “her Emilia!” and 
soon after she addressed Luigi in English, then in French, 
then in “ barricade Italian ” (by which phrase Luigi meant 
that the Italian words Avere there, but did not present their 
proper smooth footing for his understanding), and strove to 
obtain information from him concerning the signorina, and 
also concerning the chances that Milan Avould be an agitated 
city. Luigi assured her that Milan was the peacefulest of 
cities—a pure babe. He admitted his acquaintance with the 
signorina Vittoria Campa, and denied her being “ any longer ” 
the Emilia Alessandra Belloni of the English lady. The 
latter had partly retained him in her service, having given 
him directions to call at her hotel in Milan, and help her to 
communicate with her old friend. “ I present myself to her 
to-morrow, Friday,” said Luigi. 

“ That’s to-day,” said Barto. 

Luigi clapped his hand to his cheek, crying wofully, 
“You’ve drawn, beastly gaoler! a night out of my life like 
an old jaw-tooth.” 

“ There’s day two or three fathoms aboA^e us,” said Barto; 
“ and hot coffee is coming down.” 

“ I believe I’ve been stewing in a pot Avhile the moon 
looked so cool.” Luigi groaned, and touched up along the 
sleeves of his arms: that Avhich he fancied he instantaneously 
felt 

The co:ffee w^as brought by the heavy-browed young woman. 
Before she quitted the place Barto desired her to cast her 
eyes on Luigi, and say whether she thought she should know 
liim again. She scarcely glanced, and gave ansAver Avith a 
shrug of the shoulders as she retired. Luigi at the time 
was drinking. He rose; he was about to speak, but yawned 
instead. The woman’s carelessly-dropped upper eyelids 
seemed to him to be reading him through a dozen of his 


BAETO ETZZO. 


53 


contortions and disguises, and checked the idea of liberty 
which he associated with getting to the daylight. 

“ But it is worth the money !” shouted Barto Rizzo, with 
a splendid divination of his thought. “ You skulker! are 
you not j^aid and fattened to do business which you’ve only 
to remember, and it’ll honey your legs in purgatory ? You’re 
the shooting-dog of that Greek, and you nose about the 
bushes for his birds, and who cares if any fellow, just for 
exercise, shoots a dagger a yard from his wrist and sticks 
you in the back ? You serve me, and there’s pay for you ; 
brothers, doctors, nurses, friends,—a tight blanket if you 
fall from a housetop! and masses for your soul when 
your hour strikes. The treacherous cur lies rotting in a 
ditch! Do you conceive that when I employ you I am in 
your power ? Your intelligence will open gradually. Do 
you know that here in this house’ I can conceal fifty men, 
and leave the door open to the Croats to find them ? I 
tell you now—you are free ; go forth. You go alone ; no 
one touches you; ten years hence a skeleton is found with 
an English letter on its ribs-” 

“ 0, stop ! signor Barto, and be a blessed man,” interposed 
Luigi, doubling and wriggling in a posture that appeared 
as if he were shaking negatives from the elbows of his 
crossed arms. “ Stop. How did you know of a letter ? I 
forgot—I have seen the English lady at her hotel. I was 
carrying the signorina’s answer, when I thought ‘ Barto 
Rizzo calls me,’ and I came like a lamb. And what does it 
matter ? She is a good patriot; you are a good patriot; 
here it is. Consider my reputation, do; and be careful with 
the wax.” 

Barto drew a long breath. The mention of the English 
letter had been a shot in the dark. The result corroborated 
his devotional belief in the unerringness of his own powerful 
intuition. He had guessed the case, or hardly even guessed 
it—merely stated it, to horrify Luigi. The letter was placed 
in his hands, and he sat as strongly thrilled by emotion, 
under the mask of his hard face, as a lover hearing music. 
“ I read English,” he remarked. 

After he had drawn the seal three or four times slowly 
over the lamp, the green wax bubbled and unsnapped. 
Vittoria had written the following lines in reply to her old 
English friend :— 



64 


VITTOEIA. 


“ Forgive me, and do not ask to see me nntil we kavo 
passed the fifteenth of the month. You will see me that 
night at La Scala. I wish to embrace you, but I am 
miserable to think of your being in Milan. I cannot yet 
tell you where my residence is. I have not met your brother. 
If he writes to me it will make me happy, but I refuse to 
see him. I will explain to him why. Let him not try to 
see me. Let him send by this messenger. I hope he will 
contrive to be out of Milan all this month. Pray let me 
influence you to go for a time. I write coldly; I am tired, 
and forget my English. I do not forget my friends. I have 
you close against my heart. If it were prudent, and it 
involved me alone, I would come to you without a moment’s 
loss of time. Do know that I am not changed, and am your 
afiectionate 

“ Emilia.” 

When Barto Bizzo had finished reading, he went from the 
chamber and blew his voice into what Luigi supposed to be 
a hollow tube. 

“ This letter,” he said, coming back, “ is a repetition of the 
signorina Vittoria’s warning to her friends on the Motterone. 
The English lady’s brother, who is in the Austrian service, 
was there, you say ?” 

Luigi considered that, having lately been believed in, he 
could not afford to look untruthful, and replied with a 
sprightly “ Assuredly.” 

“ He was there, and he read the writing on the paper ?” 

“Assuredly: right out loud, between pufi-puff of his 
cigar.” 

“ His name is Lieutenant Pierson. Did not Antonio- 
Pericles tell you his name ? He will write to her : you will 
be the bearer of his letter to the signorina. I must see her 
reply. She is a good patriot; so am I; so are you. Good 
patriots must be prudent. I tell you, I must see her reply 
to this Lieutenant Pierson.” Barto stuck his thumb and 
finger astride Luigi’s shoulder and began rocking him gently, 
with a horrible meditative expression. “You will have to 
accomplish this, my Luigi. All fair excuses will be made, 
if you fail generally. This you must do. Keep upright 
while I am speaking to you! The excuses will be made; 
but I, not you, must make them: bear that in mind. Is 


BARTO RIZZO. 


55 


fhere anj person wliom jon, my Lnigi, like best in the 
•world ?” 

It was a winning question, and though Luigi was not the 
dupe of its insinuating gentleness, he answered, “ The little 
gii‘1 who carries flowers every morning to the cafl^ La 
Scala.” 

“ Ah ! the little girl who carries flowers every morning to 
the caffe La Scala. l!low, my Luigi, you may fail me, and I 
may pardon you. Listen attentively: if you are false; if 
you are guilty of one piece of treachery :—do you see ? You 
can’t help slipping, but you can help jumping. Restrain 
yourself from jumping, that’s all. If you are guilty of 
treachery, hurry at once, straight off, to the little girl who 
carries flowers every morning to the caffe La Scala. Go to 
her, take her by the two cheeks, kiss her, say to her ‘ addio, 
addio,’ for, by the thunder of heaven! you will never see 
her more.” 

Luigi was rocked forward and back, while Barto spoke in 
level tones, till the voice dropped into its vast hollow, when 
Barto held him fast a moment, and hurled him away by the 
simple lifting of his hand. 

The woman appeared and bound Luigi’s eyes. Barto did 
not utter another word. On his journey back to daylight, 
Luigi comforted himself by muttering oaths that he would 
never again enter into this trap. As soon as his eyes were 
unbandaged, he laughed, and sang, and tossed a compliment 
from his finger-tips to the savage-browed beauty ; pretended 
that he had got an armful, and that his heart was touched 
by the ecstasy; and sang again: “ Oh, Barto, Barto! my 
boot is sadly worn. The toe is seen,” &c., half-way down 
the stanzas. Without his knowing it, and before he had 
quitted the court, he had sunk into songless gloom, brooding 
on the scenes of the night. However free he might be in 
body, his imagination was captive to Barto Rizzo. He was 
no luckier than a bird, for whom the cage is open that it 
may feel the more keenly with its little taste of liberty that 
it is tied by the leg. 


5G 


VITTOEIA. 


CHAPTER yin. 

THE LETTER. 

The importance of tlie matters extracted from Luigi does 
not lie on the surface ; it will have to be seen through Barto 
Rizzo’s mind. This man regarded himself as the mainspring 
of the conspiracy ; specially its guardian ; its wakeful Argus. 
He had conspired sleeplessly for thirty years; so long that, 
having no ideal reserve in his nature, conspiracy had become 
his professional occupation,—the wheel which it was his 
business to roll. He was above jealousy; he was above 
vanity. No one outstripping him cast a bad colour on 
him; nOr did he object to bow to another as his superior. 
But he was prepared to suspect every one of insincerity 
and of faithlessness; and, being the master of the 
machinery of the plots, he was ready, upon a whispered 
justification, to despise the orders of his leader, and 
act by his own light in blunt disobedience. Eor it was 
his belief that while others speculated he knew all. He 
knew where the plots had failed; he knew the man who 
had bent and doubled. In the patriotic cause, perfect 
arrangements are crowned with perfect success, unless there 
is an imperfection of the instruments ; for the cause is 
blessed by all superior agencies. Such was his governing 
idea. His arrangements had always been perfect; hence the 
deduction was a denunciation of some one particular person. 
He pointed out the traitor here, the traitor there; and in 
one or two cases he did so with a mildness that made those 
r( t at their beards vaguely who understood his character. 
Barto Rizzo was, it was said, born in a village near Eorli, in 
the dominions of the Pope ; according to the rumour, he was 
the child of a veiled woman and a cowled paternity. If not 
an offender against Government, he was at least a wanderer 
early in life. None could accuse him of personal ambition. 
He boasted that he had served as a common soldier with the 
Italian contingent furnished by Eugene to the Moscow cam¬ 
paign ; he showed scars of old wounds; brown spots, and 
blue spots, and twisted twine of white skin, dotting the 
wrist, the neck, the calf, the ankle, and looking up from 
them, he slapped them proudly. Nor had he personal 


THE LETTER. 


57 


aniniosities of any kind. One skarp scar, which he called 
his shoulder-knot, he owed to the knife of a friend, by name 
Sarpo, who had things ready to betray him, and struck him, 
in anticipation of that tremendous moment of surprise and 
wrath when the awakened victim frequently is nerved with 
devil’s strength; hut, striking, like a novice, on the bone, 
the stilet stuck there ; and Barto coolly got him to point the 
outlet of escape, and walked off, carrying the blade where 
the terrified assassin had planted it. This Sarpo had become 
a tradesman in Milan—a bookseller and small printer; and 
he was unmolested. Barto said of him that he was as bad 
as a few odd persons thought himself to be, and had in him 
the making of a great traitor; but that, as Sarpo hated him 
and had sought to be rid of him for private reasons only, it 
was a pity to waste on such a fellow steel that should serve 
the Cause. “ While I live,” said Barto, “ my enemies have 
a tolerably active conscience,” The absence of personal 
animosity in him was not due to magnanimity. He doubted 
the patriotism of all booksellers. He had been twice 
betrayed by women. He never attempted to be revenged on 
them ; but he doubted the patriotism of all women. “ Use 
them; keep eye on them,” he said. In Venice he had con¬ 
spired when he was living there as the clerk of a notary; in 
Bologna subsequently while earning his bread as a petty 
schoolmaster. His evasions, both of Papal* sbirri and 
the Austrian polizia, furnished instances of astonishing 
audacity that made his name a by-word for mastery in the 
hour of peril. His residence in Milan now, after seven 
years of exile in England and Switzerland, was an act of 
pointed defiance, incomprehensible to his own party, and 
only to be explained by the prevalent belief that the authori¬ 
ties feared to provoke a collision with the people by laying 
hands on him. They had only once made a visitation to his 
house, and appeared to be satisfied at not finding him. At 
that period Austria was simulating benevolence in her Lom- 
bardic provinces, with the half degree of persuasive earnest¬ 
ness which makes a Government lax in its vigilance, and 
leaves it simply open to the charge of effetenesa. There 
were contradictory rumours as to whether his house had 
ever been visited by the polizia; but it was a legible fact 
that his name was on the window, and it was understood 
that he was not without elusive contrivances in the event 


i 


58 


VITTOEIA. 


of tlie antliorlties declaring war against him. Of the 
nature of these contrivances Luigi had just learnt some¬ 
thing. He had heard Barto Rizzo called ‘ The Miner ’ 
and ‘ The Great Cat,’ and he now comprehended a little of 
the quality of his employer. He had entered a very different 
service from that of the signor Antonio-Pericles, who paid 
him for nothing more than to keep eye on Vittoria, and 
recount her goings in and out; for what absolute object he 
was unaware, but that it was not for a political one he was 
certain. “ Cursed be the day when the lust of gold made 
me open my hand to Barto Rizzo! ” he thought; and could 
only reflect that life is short and gold is sweet, and that he 
was in the claws of the Great Cat. He had met Barto in a 
wine-shop. He cursed the habit which led him to call at 
that shop ; the thirst which tempted him to drink : the ear 
which had been seduced to listen. Yet as all his expenses 
had been paid in advance, and his reward at the instant of 
his application for it; and as the signorina and Barto were 
both good patriots, and he, Luigi, was a good patriot, what 
harm could be done to her ? Both she and Barto had 
stamped their different impressions on his waxen nature. 
He reconciled his service to them separately by the exclama¬ 
tion that they were both good patriots. 

The plot for the rising in Milan city W'as two months old. 
It comprised some of the nobles of the city, and enjoyed the 
good wishes of the greater part of them, whose payment of 
fifty to sixty per cent, to the Government on the revenue of 
their estates was sufficient reason for a desire to change 
masters, positively though they might detest Republicanism, 
and dread the shadow of anarchy. These looked hopefully 
to Charles Albert. Their motive was to rise, or to counten¬ 
ance a rising, and summon the ambitious Sardinian monarch 
with such assurances of devotion, that a Piedmontese army 
would be at the gates when the banner of Austria was in the 
dust. Among the most active members of the prospectively 
insurgent aristocracy of Milan was Count Medole, a young 
nobleman of vast wealth and possessed of a reliance on his 
powers of mind that induced him to take a prominent part 
in the opening deliberations, and speedily necessitated his 
hire of the friendly offices of one who could supply him with 
facts, with suggestions, with counsel, with fortitude, with 
everything to strengthen his pret^insions to the leadership, 


THE LETTER. 


59 


exceptin!^ money. He discovered his man in Barto Eizzo, 
who quitted the ranks of the republican section to serve him, 
and wield a tool for his own party. By the help of Agostino 
Balderini, Carlo Ammiani, and others, the aristocratic and 
the republican sections of the conspiracy were brought near 
enough together to permit of a common action between them, 
though the maintaining of such harmony demanded an 
extreme and tireless delicacy of management. The pre¬ 
sence of the Chief, whom we have seen on the Motterone, 
was claimed by other cities of Italy. Unto him solely did 
Barto Bizzo yield thorough adhesion. He being absent 
from Milan, Barto undertook to represent him and carry 
out his views. How far he was entitled to do so may be 
guessed when it is stated that, on the ground of his general 
contempt for women, he objected to the proposition that 
Vittoria should give the signal. The proposition was 
Agostino’s. Count Medole, Barto, and Agostino discussed 
it secretly: Barto held resolutely against it, until Agostino 
thrust a sly-handed letter into his fingers and let him know 
that previous to any consultation on the subject he had 
gained the consent of his Chief. Barto then fell silent. He 
despatched his new spy, Luigi, to the Motterone, more for 
the purpose of giving him a schooling on the expedition, 
and on his return from it, and so getting hand and brain and 
soul service out of him. He expected no such a report of 
Vittoria’s indiscretion as Luigi had spiced with his one 
foolish lie. That she should tell the relatives of an Austrian 
officer that Milan was soon to be a dangerous place for 
them;—and that she should write it on paper and leave 
it for the officer to read,—left her, according to Barto’s 
reading of her, open to the alternative charges of idiotcy 
or of treachery. Her letter to the English lady, the 
Austrian officer’s sister, was an exaggeration of the 
offence, but lent it more the look of heedless folly. The 
point was to obtain sight of her letter to the Austrian 
officer himself. Barto was baffled during a course of anxious 
days that led closely up to the fifteenth. She had written 
no letter. Lieutenant Pierson, the officer in question, had 
ridden into the city once from Yerona, and had called u]3on 
Antonio-Pericles to extract her address from him; the 
Greek had denied that she was in Milan. Luigi could tell 
no more. He describpd the officer’s personaPappearance, by 


60 


VITTOEIA. 


saying tliat lie was a recognizable Englisliman in Austrian 
dragoon uniform;—white tunic, white helmet, brown mous¬ 
tache ;—ay ! and eh ! and oh ! and ah ! coming frequently 
from his mouth; that he stood square while speaking, and 
seemed to like his own smile;—an extraordinary touch of 
portraiture, or else a scoff at insular self-satisfaction; at 
any rate, it commended itself to the memory. Barto dis¬ 
missed him, telling him to be daily in attendance on the 
English lady. 

Barto Rizzo’s respect for the Chief was at war with his 
intense conviction that a blow should be struck at Vittoria 
even upon the narrow information which he possessed. 
Twice betrayed, his dreams and haunting thoughts cried 
“ Shall a woman betray you thrice ?” In his imagination 
he stood identified with Italy: the betrayal of one meant 
that of both. Falling into a deep reflection, Barto counted 
over his hours of conspiracy: he counted the Chief’s ; com¬ 
paring the two sets of figures he discovered that, as he had 
suspected, he was the elder in the patriotic work : therefore, 
if he bowed his head to the Chief, it was a voluntary act, a 
form of respect, and not the surrendering of his judgement. 
He was on the spot: the Chief was absent. Barto reasoned 
that the Chief could have had no experience of women, see¬ 
ing that he was ready to trust in them. “ Do I trust to my 
pigeon, my sling-stone ?” he said jovially to the thick- 
browed, splendidly ruddy young woman, who was his wife; 
“ do I trust her ? Hot half a morsel of her!” This'young 
woman, a peasant woman of remarkable personal attractions, 
served him with the fidelity of a fascinated animal, and the 
dumbness of a wooden vessel. She could have hanged him, 
had it pleased her. She had all his secrets : but it was not 
vain speaking on Barto Rizzo’s part; he was master of her 
will; and on the occasions when he showed that he did not 
trust her, he was careful at the same time to shock and 
subdue her senses. Her report of Vittoria was, that she 
went to the house of the signora Laura Piaveni, widow of 
the latest heroic son of Milan, and to that of the maestro 
Rocco Ricci ; to no other. It was also Luigi’s report. 

“ She’s true enough,” the woman said, evidently permit¬ 
ting herself to entertain an opinion j a sign that she required 
fresh schooling. 


THE LETTER. 6*1 

So are you,” said Barto, and eyed her in a way that 
made her ask, “ Now, what’s for me to do ?” 

He thought awhile. 

“ You will see the colonel. Tell him to come in corporal’s 
uniform. What’s the little wretch twisting her body for ? 
Shan’t I embrace her presently if she’s obedient ? Send to 
the polizia. You believe your husband is in the city, and 
■will visit you in disguise at the corporal’s hour. They seize 
him. They also examine the house up to the point where 
we seal it. Your object is to learn whether the Austrians 
are moving men upon Milan. If they are—I learn some¬ 
thing. When the house has been examined, our court here 
will have rest for a good month ahead ; and it suits me not 
to be disturbed. Do this, and we will have a red-wine 
evening in the house, shut up alone, my snake! my pepper- 
flower !’■* 

It happened that Luigi was entering the court to keep an 
appointment with Barto when he saw a handful of the 
polizia burst into the house and drag out a soldier, who v/as 
in the uniform, as he guessed it -fco be, of the Prohaska 
regiment. The soldier struggled and offered money to them. 
Luigi could not help shouting, “ You fools ! don’t you see 
he’s an officer ?” Two of them took their captive aside. 
The rest made a search through the house. While they 
were doing so Luigi saw Barto Rizzo’s face at the windows 
of the house opposite. He clamoured at the door, but Barto 
M^as denied to him there. When the polizia had gone from 
the court, he was admitted and allowed to look into every 
room. Not finding him, he said, “ Barto Rizzo does not 
keep his appointments, then!” The same words were re¬ 
peated in his ear when he had left the court, and was in the 
street running parallel with it. “ Barto Rizzo does not keep 
his appointments, then!” It was Barto who smacked him 
on the back, and spoke out his own name with brown-faced 
laughter in the bustling street. Luigi was so impressed by 
his cunning and his recklessness that he at once told him 
more than he wished to tell:—The Austrian officer was with 
his sister, and had written to the signorina, and Luigi had 
delivered the letter; but the signorina was at the maestro’s, 
Rocco Ricci’s, and there was no answer: the officer was 
leaving for Verona in the morning. After telling so much, 
Luigi drew back, feeling that he had given Barto his full 


VITTORIA. 


G'2 

measure and owed to the sig’norina wliat remained. Barto 
probably read nothing of the mind of his spy, but understood 
that it was a moment for distrust of him. Vittoria and her 
mother lodged at the house of one Zotti, a confectioner, 
dwelling between the Duomo and La Scala. Luigi, at 
Barto’s bidding, left word with Zotti that he would call for 
the signorina’s answer to a certain letter about sunrise. “ I 
promised my Rosellina, my poppy-headed sijDper, a red-wine 
evening, or I would hold this fellow under my eye till the 
light comes,” thought Barto misgivingly, and let him go. 
Luigi slouched about the English lady’s hotel. At nightfall 
her brother came forth. Luigi directed him to be in the 
square of the Duomo by sunrise, and slipped from his hold ; 
the officer ran after him some distance. “ She can’t say I was 
false to her now,” said Luigi, dancing with nervous ecstasy. 
At sunrise Barto Bizzo was standing under the shadow of 
the Duomo. Luigi passed him and went to Zotti’s house, 
wffiere the letter was placed in his hand, and the door shut 
in his face. Barto rushed to him, but Luigi, with a vixenish 
countenance, standing like a humped cat, hissed, “ Would 
you destroy my reputation and have it seen that I deliver up 
letters, under the noses of the writers, to the wrong persons ? 
—ha! pestilence !” He ran, Barto following him. They 
were crossed by the officer on horseback, who challenged 
Luigi to give up the letter, which was very plainly being 
thrust from his hand into his breast. The officer found it 
no difficult matter to catch him and pluck the letter from 
him; he opened it, reading it on the jog of the saddle as he 
cantered olf. Luigi turned in a terror of expostulation to 
ward Barto’s wu’ath. Barto looked at him hard, while 
he noted the matter down on the tablet of an ivory book. 
All he said was, “I have that letter!” stamping the asser¬ 
tion with an oath. Llalf an hour later Luigi saw Barto in 
the saddle, tight-legged about a rusty beast, evidently bound 
for the South-eastern gate, his brows set like a black wind. 
“ Blessings on his going 1” thought Luigi, and sang one of 
his street-songs :— 

“ 0 lemons, lemons, what a taste you leave in the mouth 1 
I desire you, I love you, but when I suck you, I’m all caught 
up in a bundle and turn to water, like a wry-faced fountain. 
Why not be satisfied by a snih at the blossoms ? There’s 
gratification. Why did you grow up from the precious 


IN VERONA. 


63 


little sweet chuck that you were, Marietta ? Lemons, O 
lemons ! such a thing as a decent appetite is not known after 
sucking at you.” 

His natural horror of a resolute man, more than fear (of 
which he had no recollection in the sunny Piazza), made him 
shiver and gave his tongue an acid taste at the prospect of 
ever meeting Barto Rizzo again. There was the prospect 
also that he might never meet him again. 


CHAPTER IX. 

IN VERONA. 

The lieutenant read these lines, as he clattered through 
the quiet streets toward the Porta Tosa:— 

“ Dear Friend, —I am glad that you remind me of our old 
affection, for it assures me that yours is not dead. I cannot 
consent to see you yet. I would rather that we should not 
meet. 

“ I thought 1 would sign my name here, and say, ‘ God 
bless you, Wilfrid ; go !’ 

“ Oh ! why have you done this thing ! I must write on. 
It seems like my past life laughing at me, that my old friend 
should have come here in Italy, to wear the detestable 
uniform. How can we be friends when we must act as 
enemies ? We shall soon be in arms, one against the other. 
I pity you, for you have chosen a falling side; and when you 
are beaten back, you can have no pride in your country, as we 
Italians have ; no delight, no love. They will call you a 
mercenary soldier. I remember that I used to have the fear 
of your joining our enemies, when we were in England, but 
it seemed too much for my reason. 

“You are with a band of butchers. If I could see you and 
tell you the story of Giacomo Piaveni, and some other things, 
I believe you would break your sword instantly. 

“There is time. Come to Milan on the fifteenth. You 
will see me then. I appear at La Scala. Promise me, if you 
hear me, that you will do exactly what I make you feel it 
right to do. Ah, you will not, though thousands will! But 



64 


VITTORIA. 


step aside to me, when the curtain falls, and rerhain^oh, dear 
friend 1 I write in honour to you ; we have sworn to free the 
city and the country—remain among us : break your sword, 
tear off your uniform ; we are so strong that we are irresist¬ 
ible. I know what a hero you can be on the field: then, 
why not in the true cause ? I do not understand that you 
should waste your bravery under that ugly flag, bloody and 
past forgiveness. 

“ I shall be glad to have news of you all, and of England. 
The bearer of this is a trusty messenger, and will continue 
to call at the hotel. A. is offended that I do not allow my 
messenger to give my address^ but I must not only be hidden, 
I must have peace, and forget you all until I have done my 
task. Addio. We have both changed names. I am the 
same. Can I think that you are ? Addio, dear friend. 

“ Yittoria.” 

Lieutenant Pierson read again and again the letter of her 
whom he had loved in England, to get new lights from it, as 
lovers do when they have lost the power to take single im¬ 
pressions. He was the bearer of a verbal despatch from the 
commandant in Milan to the Marshal in Verona. At that 
period great favour was shown to Englishmen in the ustrian 
service, and the lieutenant’s uncle being a General of distinc¬ 
tion, he had a sort of semi-attachment to the Marshal’s stalf, 
and was hurried to and fro, for the purpose of keeping him 
out of duelling scrapes, as many of his friendlier comrades 
surmised. The right to the distinction of exercising staff- 
duties is, of course, only to be gained by stout competitorship 
in the Austrian service; but favour may do something for a 
young man even in that rigorous school of Arms. He had tO 
turn to Brescia on his way, and calculated that if luck should 
put good horses under him, he would enter Verona gates 
about sunset. Meantime, there was Vittoria’s letter to occupy 
him as he went. 

We will leave him to his bronzing ride through the mul¬ 
berries and the grapes, and the white and yellow and arid 
hues of the September plain, and make acquaintance with 
some of his comrades of that proud army which Vittoria 
thought would stand feebly against the pouring tide of 
Italian patriotism. 

The fairest of the cities of the plain had long been a nest 


IN VERONA. 


G5 


of foreioiTi soldiery. The life of its beauty was not more 
visible then than now. Within the walls there are glimpses 
of it, that belong rather to the haunting spirit than to the 
life. Military science has made a mailed giant of Yerona, 
and a silent one, save upon occasion. Its face grins of war, 
like a skeleton of death ; the salient image of the skull and 
congregating worms was one that Italian lyrists applied 
naturajly to Yerona. 

The old Field Marshal and chief commander of the Aus¬ 
trian forces in Lombardy, prompted by the counsels of his 
sagacious adlatus, the chief of the staff, was engaged at that 
period in adding some of those ugly round walls and flanking 
bastions to Yerona, upon which, when Austria was thrown 
back by the first outburst of the insurrection and the advance 
of the Piedmontese, she was enabled to plant a sturdy hind- 
foot, daring her foes as from a rock of defence. 

A group of officers, of the cavalry, with a few infantry 
uniforms skirting them, were sitting in the pleasant cooling 
evening air, fanned by the fresh springing breeze, outside one 
of the Piazza Bra caffes, close upon the shadow of the great 
Yerona amphitheatre. They were smoking their attenuated 
long straw cigars, sipping iced lemonade or coffee, and talk¬ 
ing the common talk of garrison officers, with perhaps that 
additional savour of a robust immorality which a Yiennese 
social education may give. The rounded ball of the brilliant 
September moon hung still aloft, lighting a fathomless sky 
as well as the fair earth. It threw solid blackness from the 
old savage walls almost to a junction with their indolent out¬ 
stretched feet. Itinerant street music twittered along the 
Piazza ; officers walked arm-in-arm; now in moonlight bright 
as day, now in a shadow black as night: distant figures 
twinkled with the alternation. The light lay like a blade’s 
sharp edge around the massive circle. Of Italians of a 
superior rank, Yerona sent none to this resort. Even the 
melon-seller stopped beneath the arch ending the Stradone 
Porta Nuova, as if he had reached a marked limit of his 
popular customers. 

This isolation of the rulers of Lombardy had commenced 
in Milan, but, owing to particular causes, was not positively 
defined there as it was in Yerona. War was already raging 
between the Yeronese ladies and the officers of Austria. 
According to the Gallic Terpsichorean code, a lady who 


G6 


VITTORIA. 


permits Lerself to make election of her partners and to 
reject applicants to the honour of her hand in the dance, 
■when that hand is disengaged, has no just ground of com¬ 
plaint if a glove should smite her cheek. The Austrians had 
to endure this sort of rejection in Ball-rooms. On the 
promenade their features -were forgotten. They bowed to 
statues. Now, the officers of Austria who do not belong to a 
Croat regiment, or to one drawn from any point of the 
extreme East of the empire, are commonly gentlemanly men; 
and though they can be vindictive after much irritation, 
they may claim at least as good a reputation for forbearance 
in a conquered country as our officers in India. They are 
not ill-humoured, and they are not peevishly arrogant, 
except upon provocation. The conduct of the tender Italian 
dames was vexatious. It was exasperating to these knights 
of the slumbering sword to hear their native waltzes sound¬ 
ing of exquisite Vienna, wffiile their legs stretched in melan¬ 
choly inactivity on the Piazza pavement, and their arms 
encircled no ductile waists. They tried to despise it more 
than they disliked it, called their female foes Amazons, and 
their male by a less complimentary title, and so waited for 
the patriotic eiDidemic to pass. A certain Captain Weiss- 
priess, of the regiment named after a sagacious monarch 
whose crown was the sole flourishing blossom of diplomacy, 
particularly distinguished himself by insisting that a lady 
should remember him in public places. He was famous for 
skill with his weapons. He waltzed admirably; erect as 
under his Field-Marshal’s eye. In the language of his 
brother officers, he was successful; that is, even as God 
Mars when Bellona does not rage. Captain Weisspriess 
(Johann Nepomuk, Freiherr von Scheppenhausen) resembled 
in appearance one in the Imperial Koyal service, a gambling 
General of Division, for whom Fame had not yet blown her 
blast. Rumour declared that they might be relatives ; a 
little-scrupulous society did not 'hesitate to mention how. 
The captain’s moustache was straw-coloured; he wore it 
beyond the regulation length and caressed it infinitely. 
Surmounted by a pair of hot eyes, wavering in their direc¬ 
tion, this grand moustache was a feature to be forgotten 
with difficulty, and Weisspriess was doubtless correct in 
asserting that his face had endured a slight equal to a buffet. 
He stood high and square-shouldered; the flame of the 


IN VERONA. ' 


G7 


monstache streamed on either side his face in a splendid 
curve ; his vigilant head was loftily posted to detect what 
he chose to construe as insult, or gather the smiles of appro¬ 
bation, to which, owing to the unerring judgement of the 
sex, he was more accustomed. Handsome or not, he enjoyed 
the privileges of mascaline beauty. 

This captain of a renown to come pretended that a 
superb Venetian' lady of the Branciani family was bound 
to make response in public to his private signals, and 
publicly to reply to his salutations. He refused to be as 
a particle in space floating airily before her invincible 
aspect. Meeting her one evening, ere sweet Italy had exiled 
herself from the Piazza, he bowed, and stepping to the front 
of her, bowed pointedly. She crossed her arms and gazed 
over him. He called up a thing to her recollection in 
resonant speech. Shameful lie, or shameful truth, it was 
uttered in the hearing of many of his brother officers, of 
three Italian ladies, and of an Italian gentleman. Count 
Broncini, attending them. The lady listened calmly. Count 
Broncini smote him on the face. That evening the lady’s 
brother arrived from Venice, and claimed his right to defend 
her. Captain Weisspriess ran him. through the body, and 
attached a sinister label to his corpse. This he did not so 
much from brutality ; the man felt that henceforth while he 
held his life he was at war with every Italian gentleman 
of mettle. Count Broncini was his next victim. There, for 
a time, the slaughtering business of the captain stopped. 
His brother officers of the better kind would not have 
excused him at another season, but the avenger of their irri¬ 
tation and fine vindicator of the merits of Austrian steel 
had a welcome truly warm, when at the termination of his 
second duel he strode into mess, or what serves for an 
Austrian regimental mess. 

It ensued naturally that there was everywhere in Verona 
a sharp division between the Italians of all classes and their 
conquerors. The great green-rinded melons were never 
wheeled into the neighbourhood of the whitecoats. Damsels 
wmre no longer coquettish^under the military glance, but 
hurried by in couples; and there was much scowling, mixed 
with derisive servility, throughout the city, hard to be 
endured without that hostile state of the spirit which is the 
military mind’s refuge in such cases. Itinerant musicians, 


68 


VITTOETA. 


and none but this fry, continued to be attentive to tbe dis¬ 
pensers of soldi. 

The Austrian army prides itself upon being a brother¬ 
hood. Discipline is very strict, but all commissioned officers, 
when off duty, are as free in their intercourse as big boys. 
The General accepts a cigar from the lieutenant, and in 
return lifts his glass to him. The General takes an interest 
in his lieutenant’s love-affairs: nor is the latter shy when 
he feels it his "duty modestly to compliment his superior 
officer upon a recent conquest. There is really good fellow¬ 
ship both among the officers and in the ranks, and it is 
systematically encouraged. 

The army of Austria was in those days the Austrian 
Empire. Outside the army the empire was a jealous congery 
of intriguing disaffected nationalities. The same policy 
which played the various States against one another in order 
to reduce all to subserviency to the central Head, erected a 
privileged force wherein the sentiment of union was fostered 
till it became a nationality of the sword. Nothing more 
fatal can be done for a country ; but for an army it is a 
simple measure of wisdom. Where the password is march, 
and not develop, a body of men, to be a serviceable instru¬ 
ment, must consent to act as one. Hannibal is the historic 
example of what a General can accomplish with tribes who 
are thus enrolled in a new citizenship ; and (as far as we 
know of him and his fortunes) he appears to be an example 
of the necessity of the fusing fire of action to congregated 
aliens in arms. When Austria was fighting year after year, 
and being worsted in campaign after campaign, she lost foot 
by foot, but she held together soundly; and more than the 
baptism, the atmosphere of strife has always been required 
to give her a healthy vitality as a centralized empire. She 
knew it; this (apart from the famous promptitude of the 
Hapsburgs) was one secret of her dauntless readiness to 
fight. War did the work of a smithy for the iron and steel 
holding her together; and but that war costs money, she 
would have been an empire distinguished by aggressiveness. 
The next best medicinal thing to war is the'miiitary occupa¬ 
tion of insurgent provinces. The soldiery soon feel where 
their home is, and feel the pride of atomies in unitive power, 
when they are sneered at, hooted, pelted, stabbed upon a 
gross misinterpretation of the slightness of moral offences, 


IN VERONA. 


69 


shamefully abused for doing* their duty with a considerate 
sense of it, and too accurately divided from the inhabitants 
of the land they hold. In Italy, the German, the Czech, the 
Magyar, the Croat, even in general instances the Italian, 
clung to the standard for safety, for pay, for glory, and all 
became pre-eminently Austrian soldiers ; little besides. 

It was against a power thus bound in iron hoops, that 
Italy, dismembered, and jealous, and corrupt, with an 
organization promoted by passion chiefly, was preparing to 
rise. In the end, a country true to itself and determined to 
claim God’s gift to brave men will overmatch a mere army, 
however solid its force. But an inspired energy of faith is 
demanded of it. The intervening chapters will show pitiable 
weakness, and such a schooling of disaster as makes men, 
looking on the surface of things, deem the struggle folly. 
As well, they might say, let yonder scuffling vagabonds up 
any of the Veronese side-streets fall upon the patrol march¬ 
ing like one man, and hope to overcome them! In Vienna 
ther^ was often despair : but it never existed in the Austrian 
camp. Vienna was frequently double-dealing and time¬ 
serving : her force in arms was like a trained man feeling 
his muscle. Thus, when the Government thought of tem¬ 
porizing, they issued orders to Generals whose one idea was 
to strike the blow of a mallet. 

At this period there was no suspicion of any grand revolt 
being in process of development. The abounding dissatis¬ 
faction was treated as nothing more than the Italian disease 
showing symptoms here and there, and Vienna counselled 
measures mildly repressive ;—‘ conciliating,’ it was her plea¬ 
sure to call them. Her recent commands with respect to 
turbulent Venice were the subject of criticism among the 
circle outside the Piazza caffe. An enforced inactivity of 
the military legs will quicken the military wits, it would 
appear, for some of the younger officers spoke hotly as to 
their notion of the method of ruling Venezia. One had 
bidden his Herr General to “ look here,” while he stretched 
forth his hand and declared that Italians were like women, 
and wanted—yes, wanted —(their instinct called for it) a 
beating, a real beating; as the emphatic would say in our 
vernacular, a thundering thrashing, once a month :—“ Or 
so,” the General added acquiescingly. A thundering thrash¬ 
ing, once a month or so, to these unruly Italians, because 


70 


VITTOEIA. 


they are like women ! It was a youth who spoke, but none 
doubted his acquaintance with women, or cared to suggest 
that his education in that department of knowledge was an 
insufEcient guarantee for his fitness to govern Yenezia. Two 
young dragoon officers had approached during the fervid 
allocation, and after the salute to their superior, caught up 
chah'S and stamped them down, thereupon calling for the 
loan of anybody’s cigar-case. Where it is that an Austrian 
officer ordinarily keeps this instrument so necessary to his 
comfort, and obnoxious, one would suppose, to the rigid cor¬ 
rectness of his shapely costume, we cannot easily guess. 
None can tell even where he stows away his pocket-hand¬ 
kerchief, or haply his purse. However, these things appear 
on demand. Several elongated cigar-cases were thrust for¬ 
ward, and then it was seen that the attire of the gallant 
youngsters was in disorder. 

“ Did you hunt her to earth ?” they were asked. 

The reply trenched on philosophy; and consisted in an 
inquiry as to who cared for the whole basketful—of the like 
description of damsels, being implied. Immoderate and up¬ 
roarious laughter burst around them. Both seemed to have 
been clawed impartially. Their tight-fitting coats bulged 
at the breast or opened at the waist, as though buttons were 
lacking, and the whiteness of that garment cried aloud for 
the purification of pipeclay. Questions flew'. The damsel 
who had been pursued w^as known as a pretty girl, the 
daughter of a blacksmith, and no prolonged resistance wm.s 
expected from one of her class. But, as it came out, she had 
said, a w^eek past, “ I shall be stabbed if I am seen talking 
to you;” and therefore the odd matter wms, not that she had, 
in tripping dowm the Piazza with her rogue-eyed cousin from 
Milan, looked away and declined all invitation to moderate 
her pace, and to converse, but that, after doubling down and 
about lonely streets, the length of which she ran as swiftly 
as her feet would carry her, at a corner of the Yia Colomba 
she allow'ed herself to be caught—wilfully, beyond a doubt, 
seeing that she was not a bit breathed—allowed one quick 
taste of her lips, and then shrieked as naturally as a netted 
bird, and brought a hustling crowd just at that particular 
point to her rescue : not less than fifty, and all men. “ Not 
a woman among them!” the excited young officer repeated. 

A veteran in similar affairs could see that he had the wish 


IN VEEONA. 


71 


to remain undisturbed in his bewilderment at the damsel’s 
conduct. Profound belief in her partiality for him perplexed 
his recent experience rather agreeably. Indeed, it was at 
this epoch an article of faith with the Austrian military 
that nothing save terror of their males kept sweet Italian 
women from the expression of their preference for the broad- 
shouldered, thick-limbed, yellow-haired warriors—the con¬ 
trast to themselves which is supposed greatly to inspirit 
genial Cupid in the selection from his quiver. 

“ What became of her? Did you let her go?” came pester¬ 
ing remarks, too absurd for replies if they had not been so 
persistent. 

“ Let her go ? In the devil’s name, how was I to keep my 
hold of her in a crowd of fifty of the fellows, all mowing, 
and hustling, and elbowing — every rascal stinking right 
under my nose like the pit ?” 

“’Hem!” went the General present. “As long as you 
did not draw ! Unsheathe, a minute.” 

He motioned for a sight of their naked swords. 

Th6 couple of young officers flushed. 

“ Herr General I Pardon !” they remonstrated. 

“Ho, no. I know how boys talk; I’ve been one myself. 
Tutt! You tell the truth, of course; but the business is for 
me to know in what 1 how far 1 Your swords, gentlemen.” 

“But, General!” 

“Well ? I merely wish to examine the blades.’* 

“ Do you doubt our words ?” 

“ Hark at them ! Words ? Are you lawyers ? A soldier 
deals in acts. I don’t want to know your words, but your 
deeds, my gallant lads. I want to look at the blades of your 
swords, my children. What was the last order ? That on 
no account were we to provoke, or, if possibly to be avoided, 
accept a collision, &c. &c. The soldier in peace is a citizen, &c. 
Ho sword on any account, or for any excuse, to be drawn, &c. 
You all heard it? So, good! I receive your denial, my 
children. In addition, I merely desire to satisfy curiosity. 
Did the guard clear a way for you ?” 

The answer was affirmative. , 

“ Your swords !” 

One of them drew, and proffered the handle. , 

The other clasped the haft angrily, and with a resolute 
smack on it, settled it in the scabbard. 


72 


VITTOPJA. 


“ Am I a prisoner, General 

“Not at all!” 

“ Then I decline to surrender mv sword.” 

Another General officer happened to be sauntering by. 
Applauding with his hands, and choosing the Italian lan¬ 
guage as the best form of speech for the enunciation of 
ironical superlatives, he said:— 

“ Eccellentemente 1 most admirable 1 of a distinguished 
loftiness of moral grandeur: ‘ Then I decline,’ &c.: you are 
aware that you are quoting? ^ as the drummer-hoy said to 
Napoleon.^ I think you forgot to add that ? It is the same 
young soldier who utters these immense things, which we 
can hardly get out of our mouths. So the little fellow 
towers 1 His moral greatness is as noisy as his drum. 
What’s wrong ?” 

“ General Pierson, nothing’s wrong,” was replied by several 
voices; and some explained that Lieutenant Jenna had been 
called .upon by General Schoneck to show his sword, and 
had refused. 

The heroic defender of his sword shouted to the officer 
with whom General Pierson had heen conversing: “ Here I 
Weisspriess I” 

“ What is it, my dear fellow ? Speak,' my good Jenna !” 

The explanation was given, and full Sympathy elicited 
from Captain Weisspriess, while the two Generals likewise 
whispered and nodded. 

“ Did you draw ?” the captain inquired, yawning. “ You 
needn’t say it in quite so many words, if you did. I shall 
be asked by the General presently; and owing to that duel 
pending ’twixt you and his nephew, of which he is aware, 
he may put a bad interpretation on your pepperiness.” 

“ The devil fetch his nephew 1” returned the furious 
Lieutenant Jenna. “ He conies back to-night from Milan, 
and if he doesn’t fight me to-morrow, I post him a coward. 
Well, about that business ! My good Weisspriess, the fellows 
had got into a thick crowd all round, and had begun to 
knead me. Do you understand me ? I felt their knuckles.” 

“ Ah, good, good !” said the captain. “ Then, you didn’t 
^ draw, of course. What officer of the Imperial service 
woald, under similar circumstances 1 That is my reply to 
the Emperor, if ever I am questioned. To draw, would be 
to show that an Austrian officer relies on his good sword in 



IN VERONA. 


73 


the thick of his enemies;—against which, as you know, my 
Jenna, the Government have issued an express injunction. 
1 see you have lost a button. Did you sell it dear 

“ A fellow parted with his ear for it.” 

Lieutenant Jenna illustrated a particular cut from a turn 
of his wrist. 

“ That oughtn’t to make a noise ?” he queried somewhat 
anxiously. 

“ It won’t hear one any longer, at all events,” said Captain 
Weisspriess ; and the two officers entered into the significance 
of the remark with enjoyment. 

Meantime General Pierson had concluded an apparently 
humorous dialogue with his brother General, and the latter, 
now addressing Lieutenant Jenna, said: “ Since you prefer 
surrendering your person rather than your sword—it is 
good! Report yourself at the door of my room to-night, at 
ten. I suspect that you have been blazing your steel, sir. 
They say, ’tis as ready to flash out as your temper.” 

Several voices interposed: “ General! what if he did 
draw !” 

“ Silence. You hav-e read the recent order. Orlando may 
have his Durindarda bare; but you may not. Grasp that 
fact. The Government wish to make Christians of you, my 
children. One cheek being- smitten, what should you do ?” 

“ Shall I show you, General ? ” cried a quick little 
subaltern. 

“ The order, iny children, as received a fortnight since 
from our old Wien, commands you to offer the other cheek 
to the smiter.” 

“ So that a proper balance may be restored to both sides 
of the face,” General Pierson appended. 

“ And mark me,” he resumed. “ There may be doubts 
about the policy of anything, though I shouldn’t counsel you 
to cherish them : but there’s no mortal doubt about the 
punishment for this thing.” The General spoke sternly; 
and then relaxing the severity of his tone, he said, “ The 
desire of the Government is to make an army of Christians.” 

“And a precious way of doing it!” interjected two or 
three of the younger officers. They perfectly understood 
how hateful the Viennese domination was to their chiefs, 
and that they would meet sympathy and tolerance for any 
extreme of irony, provided that they showed a disposition 


74 


VITTOEIA. 


to be subordinate. For tlie bureaucratic order, wbatever if; 
was, bad to be obeyed. The army might, and of course did, 
know best: nevertheless it was bound to be nothing better 
than a machine in the hands of the dull closeted men in 
Vienna, who judged of difficulties and plans of action from 
a calculation of numbers, or from foreign journals—from 
heaven knows what! 

(jreneral iSchoneck and General Pierson walked away 
laughing, and the younger officers were left to themselves. 
Half-a-dozen of them interlaced arms, striding up toward 
the Porta JSTuova, near which, at the corner of the Via 
Trinita, they had the pleasant excitement of beholding a 
riderless horse suddenly in mid gallop sink on its knees and 
roll over. A crowd came pouring after it, and from the 
midst the voice of a comrade hailed them. “ Tt’s Pierson,” 
cried Lieutenant Jenna. The officers drew their swords, 
and hailed the guard from the gates. Lieutenant Pierson 
dropped in among their shoulders, dead from Tvant (f 
breath. They held him up, and finding him sound, thumped 
his back. The blade of his sword was red. He coughod 
with their thumpings, and sang out to them to cease; the 
idle mob which had been at his heels drew back before 
the guard could come up with them. Lieutenant Pierson 
gave no explanation except that he had been attacked 
near Juliet’s tomb on his way to General Schoneck’s 
quarters. Fellows had stabbed his horse, and brought 
him to the ground, and torn the coat off his back. He com¬ 
plained in bitter mutterings of the loss of a letter therein, 
during the first candid moments of his anger: and, as he 
was known to be engaged to the Countess Lena von Lenken- 
stein, it was conjectured by his comrades that this lady 
might have had something to do with the ravishment of the 
letter. Great laughter surrounded him, and he looked from 
man to man. Allowance is naturally made for the irasci¬ 
bility of a brother officer coming tattered out of the hands of 
enemies, or Lieutenant Jenna w'^ould have construed his e^fe’s 
challenge on the spot. As it was, he cried out, “ The letter! 
the letter! Charge, for the honour of the army, and rescue 
the letter 1” Others echoed him : “ The letter ! the letter I 
the English letter!” A foreigner in an army can have as 
much provocation as he pleases; if he is anything of a 
favourite with his superiors, his fellows will task his for- 


IN VERONA. 


75 


bearance. Wilfrid Pierson glanced at the blade of his 
sword, and slowly sheathed it. “Lieutenant Jenna is a good 
actor before a mob,” he said. “ Gentlemen, I rely upon 3 ’ou 
to make no noise about that letter; it is a private matter. 
In an hour or so, if any officer shall choose to question me 
concerning it, I will answer him.” 

The last remnants of the mob had withdrawn. The officer 
in command at the gates threw a cloak over Wilfrid’s 
shoulders ; and taking the arm of a friend Wilfrid hurried 
to barracks, and was quickly in a position to report himself 
to his General, whose first remark, “ Has the dead horse been 
removed ?” robbed him of his usual readiness to equivocate. 
“ When you are the bearer of a verbal despatch, come 
straight to quarters, if you have to come like a fig-tree on the 
north side of the wall in Winter,” said General Schoneck, 
who was joined presently by General Pierson. 

“ What’s this I hear of some letter you have been barking 
about all over the city F” the latter asked, after returning 
his nephew’s on-duty salute. 

Wilfrid replied that it w'as a letter of his sister’s treating 
of family matters. 

The two Generals, who were close friends, discussed the 
attack to which he had been subjected. Wilfrid had to 
recount it with circumstance : how, as he was nearing 
General Schoneck’s quarters at a military trot, six men 
headed by a leader had dashed out on him from a narrow 
side-street, unhorsed him after a struggle, rifled the saddle¬ 
bags, and torn the coat from his back, and had taken the 
mark of his sword, while a gathering crowd looked on, 
hooting. His horse had fled, and he confessed that he had 
followed his horse. General Schoneck spoke the name of 
Countess Lena suggestively. “ Hot a bit,” returned General 
Pierson; “ the fellow courts her too hotly. The scoundrels 
here want a bombardment; that’s where it lies. A dose of 
iron pills will make Verona a healthy place. She must 
ha *e it.” 

General Schoneck said, “ I hope not,” and laughed at the 
heat of Irish blood. He led Wilfrid in to the Marshal, after 
which Wilfrid was free to seek Lieutenant Jenna, who had 
gained the right to a similar freedom by pledging his honour 
not to fight within a stipulated term of days. The next 
morning Wilfrid was roused by an orderly coming from his 


76 


VITTOEIA. 


uncle, who placed in his hands a copy of Yittoria’s letter : 
at the end of it his uncle had written, “ Rather astonishing. 
Done pretty well; but by a foreigner. ‘ Affection ’ spelt 
with one ‘ f.’ An Italian: you will see the letters are 
emphatic at ‘ ugly flag also ‘ bloody and past forgiveness’ 
very large; the copyist had a dash of the feelings of a com¬ 
mentator, and did his (or her) best to add an oath to it. 
Who the deuce, sir, is this opera girl calling herself Vit- 
toria ? I have a lecture for you. German women don’t 
forgive diversions during courtship; and if you let this 
Countess Lena slip, your chance has gone. I compliment 
you on your power of lying; but you must learn to show 
your right face to me, or the very handsome feature, your 
nose, and that useful box, your skull, will come to grief. 
The whole business is a mystery. The letter (copy) was 
directed to you, brought to me, and opened in a fit of abstrac¬ 
tion, necessary to commanding uncles who are trying to push 
the fortunes of young noodles pretending to be related to 
them. Go to Countess Lena. Count Paul is with her, from 
Bologna. Speak to her, and observe her and him. He 
knows English—has been attached to the embassy in London ; 
but, pooh ! the hand’s Italian. I confess myself puzzled. 
We shall possibly have to act on the intimation of the 
fifteenth, and profess to be wiser than others. Something is 
brewing for business. See Countess Lena boldly, and then 
come and breakfast with me.” 

Wilfrid read the miserable copy of Yittoria’s letter, utterly 
unable to resolve anything in his mind, except that he would 
know among a thousand the leader of those men who had 
attacked him, and who bore the mark of his sword. 


CHAPTER X. 

• ’ ' THE pope’s mouth. 

Barto Rizzo had done what he had sworn to do. He had 
not found it difficult to outstrip the lieutenant (who had to 
visit Brescia on his way) and reach the gates of Yerona in 
advance of him, where he obtained entrance among a body 
of grape-gatherers and others descending from the hills to 
meet a press of labour in the autumnal plains. With them 



THE pope’s mouth. 


77 


he hoped to issue forth unchallenged on the following morn¬ 
ing; but Wilfrid’s sword had made lusty play; and, as in 
-the case wdien the order has been given that a man shall be 
spared in life and limb, Barto and his fellow-assailants 
suffered by their effort to hold him simply half a minute 
powerless. He received a shrewd cut across the head, and 
lay for a couple of hours senseless in the wine-shop of one 
Battista—one of the many all over Lombardy who had 
pledged their allegiance to the Great Cat, thinking him 
scarcely vulnerable. He read the letter, dizzy with pain, 
and with the frankness proper to inflated spirits after loss 
of blood, he owned to himself that it was not w^orth much as 
a prize. It w^as worth the attempt to get possession of it, 
for anything is worth what it costs, if it be only as a school¬ 
ing in resolution, energy, and devotedness:—regrets are the 
sole admission of a fruitless business ; they show the bad 
tree ;—so, according to his principle of action, he deliberated; 
but he was compelled to admit that Vittoria’s letter was 
little else than a repetition of her w’^ant of discretion when 
she was on the Mofcterone. He admitted it, wrathfully: his 
efforts to convict this woman telling him she deserved some 
punishment; and his suspicions being unsatisfied, he resolved 
to keep them hungry upon her, and return to Milan at once. 
As to the letter itself, he purposed, since the harm in it was 
accomplished, to send it back honourably to the lieutenant, 
till finding it blood-stained, he declined to furnish the grati¬ 
fication of such a sight to any Austrian sword. For that 
reason, he copied it, while Battista’s wife held double band¬ 
ages tight round his head: believing that the letter stood 
transcribed in a precisely similar hand, he forwarded it to 
Lieutenant Pierson, and then sank and swooned. Two days 
he lay incapable and let his thoughts dance as they would. 
Information was brought to him that the gates were strictly 
watched, and that troops w^ere starting for Milan. This 
was in the dull hour antecedent to the dawn. “ She is a 
traitress !” he exclaimed, and leaping from his bed, as with 
a brain striking fire, screamed, V Traitress ! traitress!” 
Battista and his wife had to fling themselves on him and 
gag him, guessing him as mad. He spoke pompously and 
theatrically; called himself the Eye of Italy, and said that 
he must be in Milan, or Milan would perish, because of the 
traitress: all with a great sullen air of composure and an 


78 


VITTOEIA. 


odd distension of tlie eyelids. When they released him, he 
smiled and thanked them, though they knew that, had he 
chosen, he could have thrown off a dozen of them, such was 
his strength. The woman went down on her knees to him 
to get his consent that she should dress and bandage his 
head afresh. The sound of the regimental bugles drew him 
from the house, rather than any immediate settled scheme to 
watch at the gates. 

Artillery and infantry were in motion before sunrise, from 
various points of the city, bearing toward the Palio and Zeno 
gates, and the people turned out to see them, for it was a 
march that looked like the beginning of things. The soldiers 
had green twigs in their hats, and kissed their hands good - 1 
humouredly to the gazing crowd, shouting bits of verses;— 

“ I’m off ! I’m off ! Farewell, Mariandl! if I come back a 
sergeant-major or a Field-Marshal, don’t turn up your nose 
at me.: Swear you will be faithful all the while; because, 
when a wmman sv^^ears, it’s a comfort, somehow: Farewell! 
Squeeze the cow’s udders: I shall be thirsty enough: You 
pretty wriggler! don’t you know, the first cup of wine and 
the last, I shall float your name on it ? Luck to the lads we 
leave behind ! Farewell, Mariandl!” 

The kindly fellows waved their hands and would take no 
rebuff. The soldiery of Austria are kindlier than most, 
until their blood is up. A Tyrolese regiment passed, singing 
splendidly in chorus. Songs of sentiment prevailed, but the 
traditions of a soldier’s experience of the sex have informed 
his ballads with strange touches of irony, that help him to 
his (so to say) philosophy, which is recklessness. The 
Tyroler’s ‘ Kiitchen ’ here, was a saturnine Giulia, who gave 
him no response, either of eye or lip. 

“ Little mother, little sister, little sweetheart, ade! ade! 
My little sweetheart, your meadow is half-way up the moun¬ 
tain ; it’s such a green spot on the eyeballs of a roving boy! 
and the chapel just above it, I shall see it as I’ve seen it a 
thousand times; and the cloud hangs near it, and moves to 
the door and enters, for it is an angel, not a cloud; a white 
angel gone in to pray for Katerlein and me: Little mother, 
. little sister, little sweetheart, ade ! ade ! Keep single, Kater¬ 
lein, as long as you can: as long as you can hold out, keep 
single: ade!” 


THE pope’s mouth. 79 

Eifteen hundred men and six guns were counted as they 
marched on to one gate. 

Barto Rizzo, with Battista and his wife on each side of him, 
were among the spectators. The black cock’s feathers of the 
Tyrolese were still fluttering up the Corso, when the woman 
said, “ I’ve known the tail of a regiment get through the gates 
without having to show paper.” 

Battista thereupon asked Barto whether he would try that 
chance. The answer was a vacuous shake of the head, ac¬ 
companied by an expression of unutterable mournfulness. 
“ There’s no other way,” pursued Battista, “ unless you jump 
into the Adige, and swim down half a mile under water; and 
cats hate water—eh, my comico ?” 

He conceived that the sword-cut had rendered Barto 
imbecile, and pulled his hat down his forehead, and patted 
his shoulder, and bade him have cheer, patronizingly: but 
women do not so lightly lose their impression of a notable 
man. His wife checked him. Barto had shut his eyes, and 
hung swaying between them, as in drowsiness or drunken¬ 
ness. Like his body, his faith was swaying within him. He 
felt it borne upon the reeling brain, and clung to it despe¬ 
rately, calling upon chance to aid him; for he was weak, 
incapable of a physical or mental contest, and this part of his 
settled creed—that human beings alone failed the patriotic 
cause as instruments, while circumstances constantly be¬ 
friended it—was shocked by present events. The image of 
Vittoria, the traitress, floated over the soldiery marching on 
Milan through her treachery. Never had an Austrian force 
seemed to him so terrible. He had to yield the internal 
j fight, and let his faith sink and be blackened, in order that 
.his mind might rest supine, according to his ^remembered 
system; for the inspiration which points to the right course 
does not come during mental strife, but after it, when faith 
summons its agencies undisturbed—hf only men will have the 
faith, and will teach themselves to know that the inspiration 
must come, and will counsel them justly. This was a part 
of Barto Rizzo’s sustaining creed ; nor did he lose his grasp 
of it ill the torment and the darkness of his condition. 

He heard English voices. A carriage had stopped almost 
in front of him. A General officer was hat in hand, talking 
to a lady, who called him uncle, and said that she had been 
obliged to decide to quit Verona on account of her husband, 


VITTORIA. 


80 ■ 

to wliom tlie excessive heat was unendarable. Her husband, 
in the same breath, protested that the heat killed him. He 
adorned the statement Avith all kinds of domestic and subter¬ 
ranean imagery, and laughed faintly, saying that after the 
fifteenth—on Avhich night his wife insisted upon going to the 
Opera at Milan to hear a new singer and old friend—he 
should try a Aveek at the Baths of Bormio, and only drop 
from the mountains when a proper 'temperature reigned, he 
being something of an invalid. 

“ And, uncle, Avill you be in Milan on the fifteenth ?” said 
the lady; “ and Wilfrid, too ?” 

‘‘ Wilfrid will reach Milan as soon as you do, and I shall 
undoubtedly be there on the fifteenth,” said the General. 

“ I cannot possibly express to you hoAV beautiful I think 
your army looks,” said the lady, 

“ Fine men. General Pierson, very fine men, I never 
saAV such marching—equal to our Guards,” her husband 
remarked. 

The lady named her Milanese hotel as the General waved 
Ids plumes, nodded, and rode off. 

Before the carriage had started, Barto Rizzo dashed up to 
it; and “ Dear good English lady,” he addressed her, “ I am 
the brother of Luigi, aaTio carries letters for you in Milan— 
little Luigi!—and I have a mother dying in Milan; and here 
I am in Verona, ill, and can’t get to her, poor soul! Will 
you allow me that I may sit up behind as quiet as a mouse, 
and be near one of the lovely English ladies who are so kind 
to unfortunate persons, and never deaf to the name of charity ? 
It’s my mother Avho is dying, poor soul !” 

The lady consulted her husband’s face, Avhich presented 
the total blank of one Avho refused to be responsible for an 
opinion hostile to the claims of charity, AAdiile it was impos¬ 
sible for him to fall in with foreign habits of familiarity, and 
accede to extraordinary petitions. Barto sprang up. “ I 
shall be your courier, dear lady,” he said, and commenced his 
professional career in her service by shouting to the vetturino 
to drive on, Wilfrid met them as he was trotting doAvn from 
the Porta del Palio, and to him his sister confided her noAv 
trouble in having a strange man attached to her, AAdio might 
be anything. “We don’t knoAv the man,” said her husband; 
and Adela pleaded for him : “ Don’t speak to him harshly, 
pray, Wilfrid; He says ha has a mother dying in Milan.” 


THE pope’s mouth. 


81 


Barto kept Ms head down on his arms and groaned; Adela 
gave a doleful little grimace. “ Oh, take the poor beggar,” 
said Wilfrid; and sang out to him in Italian: “Who are 
you—what are you, my fine fellow ?” Barto groaned 
louder, and replied in Swiss-French from a smothering 
depth: “A poor man, and the gracious lady’s servant till 
we reach Milan.” 

“ I can’t wait,” said Wilfrid; “ I start in half-an-hour. 
It’s all right; you must take him now you’ve got him, or 
else pitch him out—one of the two. If things go on quietly 
we shall have the Autumn mancBuvres in a week, and then 
you may see something of the army.” He rode away. 
Barto passed the gates as one of the licenced English family. 

Milan was more strictly guarded than when he had quitted 
it. He had anticipated that it would be so, and tamed his 
spirit to submit to the slow stages of the carriage, spent a 
fiery night in Brescia, and entered the city of action on the 
noon of the fourteenth. Safe within the walls, he thanked 
the English lady, assuring her that her charitable deed 
would be remembered aloft. He then turned his steps in 
the direction of the Revolutionary post-office. This place 
was nothing other than a blank abutment of a corner house 
that had long been undergoing repair, and had a great bank 
of brick and mortar rubbish at its base. A stationary 
melon-seller and some black fig and vegetable stalls occupied 
the triangular space fronting it. The removal of a square 
piece of cement showed a recess, where, chiefly during the 
night, letters and proclamation papers were deposited, for 
the accredited postman to disperse them. Hither, as one 
would go to a caffe for the news, Barto Rizzo came in the 
broad glare of noon, and flinging himself down like a tired 
man under the strip of shade, worked with a hand behind 
him, and drew out several folded scraps, of which one was 
addressed to him by his initials. He opened it and read:—• 

“ Yoiir house is watched. 

“ A corporal of the P . . . . ka regiment was seen leaving 
it this morning in time for the'second bugle. 

“ Reply :—where to meet. 

“ Spies are doubled, troops coming. 

“ The numbers in Verona;—who heads them. 

“ Look to your wife. 

“ Letters are called for every third hour.” 

Barto sneered indolently at this fresh evidence of the 

G 


82 


VITTORIA. 


small amount of intelligence which, he could ever learn from 
others. He threw his eyes all round the vacant space while 
pencilling in reply :— 

“V. waits for M., but in a box” (that is, Yerona for 
Milan). “We take the key to her. 

“ I have no wife, but a little pupil. 

“ A Lieutenant Pierson, of the dragoons, Czech;—white 
coats, helmets without plumes; an Englishman, nephew of 
General Pierson: speaks crippled Italian; returns fromY. 
to-day. Keep eye on him ;—what house, what hour.” 

Meditating awhile, Barto wrote out Yittoria’s name and 
enclosed it in a thick black ring. 

Beneath it he wrote :— 

“ The same on all the play-bills. 

“ The Fifteenth is cancelled. 

“We meet the day after. 

“ At the house of Count M. to-night.” 

He secreted this missive, and wrote Yittoria’s name on 
numbers of slips to divers addresses, heading them, “ From 
the Pope’s Mouth,” such being the title of the Revolutionary 
post-office, to whatsoever spot it might in prudence shift. 
The title w^as entirely complimentary to his Holiness. 
Tangible freedom, as well as airy blessings, were at that 
time anticipated, and not without warrant, from the mouth 
of the successor of St. Peter. From the Pope’s Mouth the 
clear voice of Italian liberty was to issue. This sentiment 
of the period was a natural and a joyful one, and endowed 
the popular ebullition with a sense of unity and a stamp of 
righteousness that the abstract idea of liberty could not 
assure to it before martyrdom. After suffering, afteu walk¬ 
ing in the shades of death and des])air, men of worth and of 
valour cease to take high personages as representative objects 
of worship, even wlien these (as the good Pope w^as then 
doing) benevolently bless the nation and bid it to have great 
hope, with a voice of authority. But, for an extended 
popular movement a great name is like a consecrated banner. 
Proclamations from the Pope’s Mouth exacted reverence, 
and Barto Rizzo, who despised the Pope (because he was 
Pope, doubtless), did not hesitate to make use of him by 
virtue of his office. 

Barto lay against the heap of rubbish, w^aiting for the 
approach of his trained lad, Checco, a lanky simpleton, 
cunning as a pure idiot, who was doing postman’s duty. 


THE pope’s mouth. 


83 


wlicn a kick, delivered by that youth behind, sent him 
bounding round with rage, like a fish in air. The market¬ 
place resounded with a clapping of hands ; for it was here 
that Checco came daily to eat figs, and it was known that 
the ‘povero,’ the dear half-witted creature, would not 
tolerate an intruder in the place where he stretched his 
limbs to peel and suck in the gummy morsels twice or thrice 
a day. Barto seized and'shook him. Checco knocked off his 
hat; the bandage about the wound broke and dropped, and 
Barto put his haud to his forehead, murmuring: “ What’s 
come to me that I lose my temper with a boy—an animal ? ” 

The excitement all over the triangular space was hushed 
by an imperious guttural shout that scattered the groups. 
Two Austrian officers, followed by military servants, rode 
side by side. Dust had whitened their mustachios, and the 
heat had laid a brown-red varnish on their faces. Way was 
made for them, while Barto stood smoothing his forehead 
and staring at Checco. 

“ I see the very man! ” cried one of the officers quickly. 
“ Weisspriess, there’s the rascal who headed the attack on 
me in Verona the other day. It’s the same ! ” 

“ Himmel! ” returned his companion, scrutinizing the 
sword-cut, “ if that’s your work on his head, you did it right 
well, my Pierson! He is very neatly scored, indeed. A 
clean stroke, manifestly ! ” 

“But here when I left Milan ! at Verona when I entered 
the North-west gate there; and the first man I see as 1 come 
back is this very brute. He dogs me everywhere ! By the 
way, there may be two of them.” 

Lieutenant Pierson leaned over his horse’s neck, and 
looked narrowly at the man Barto Rizzo. He himself was 
eyed as in retort, and with yet greater intentness. At first 
Barto’s hand was sweeping the air within a finger’s length 
of his forehead, like one who fought a giddiness for steady 
sight. The mist upon his brain dispersing under the gaze 
of his enemy, his eyeballs fixed, and he became a curious 
])icture of passive malice, his eyes seeming to say : “ It is 
enough for me to know your features, and I know them.” 
Such a look from a civilian is exasperating: it was scarcely 
to be endured from an Italian of the plebs. 

“You appear to me to want more,” said the lieutenant 
audibly to himself; and he repeated words to the same effect 
to his companion, in bad German. 


84 


VITTOEIA. 


“ Ell ? You would promote Mm to another epaulette ? ** 
laughed Captain Weisspriess. “ Come off. Orders are direct 
against it. And we’re in Milan—not like being in Verona! 
And my good fellow 1 remember your bet; the dozen of iced 
Riidesheimer. I want to drink my share, and dream I’m 
quartered in Mainz—the only place for an Austrian when he 
quits Vienna. Come.” 

“No; but if this is the villain who attacked me, and tore 
my coat from my back,” cried Wilfrid, screwing in his 
saddle. 

“ And took your letter—took your letter; a particular 
letter; we have heard of it,” said Weisspriess. 

The lieutenant exclaimed that he should overhaul and 
examine the man, and see whether he thought fit to give him 
into custody. Weisspriess laid hand on his bridle. 

“ Take my advice, and don’t provoke a disturbance in the 
streets. The truth is, you Englishmen and Irishmen get us 
a bad name among these natives. If this is the man who 
unhorsed you and maltreated you, and committed the rape 
of the letter, I’m afraid you won’t get satisfaction out of 
him, to judge by his look. I’m really afraid not. Try it if 
you like. In any case, if you halt, I am compelled to quit 
your society, which is sometimes infinitely diverting. Let 
me remind you that you bear despatches. The other day 
they were verbal ones ; you are now carrying paper.” 

“Are you anxious to teach me my duty. Captain Weiss¬ 
priess ? ” 

“ If you don’t know it. I said I would ‘ remind you.’ I 
can also teach you, if you need it.” 

“ And I can pay you for the instruction, whenever you are 
disposed to receive payment.” 

“ Settle your outstanding claims, my good Pierson ! ” 

“ When I have fought Jenna ? ” 

“Oh! you’re a Prussian—a Prussian!” Captain Weiss¬ 
priess laughed. “ A Prussian, I mean, in your gross way of 
blurting out everything. I’ve marched and messed with 
Prussians—with oxen,” 

“ I am, as you are aware, an Englishman, Captain Weiss¬ 
priess. I am due to Lieutenant Jenna for the present. 
After that you or any one may command me.” 

“ As you please,” said Weisspriess, drawing out one stream 
of his moustache. “ In the meantime, thank me for luring 
you away from the chances of a street row.” ' 


THE pope’s mouth. 


85 


Barto Rizzo was left behind, and they rode on to the 
Dnomo. Glancing up at its pinnacles, Weisspriess said : 
“ Kow splendidly Flatschmann’s jagers would pick them off 
from there, now, if the dogs were giving trouble in this part 
of the city ! ” 

They entered upon a professional discussion of the ways 
and means of dealing with a revolutionary movement in the 
streets of a city like Milan, and passed on to the Piazza La 
Scala. Weisspriess stopped before the Play-bills. “ To¬ 
morrow’s the fifteenth of the month,” he said. “ Shall I tell 
you a secret, Pierson ? I am to have a private peep at the 
new prima donna this night. They say she’s charming, and 
very pert. ‘ I do not interchange letters with Germans.’ 
Benlomik sent her a neat little note to the conservatorio— 
he hadn’t seen her: only heard of her, and that was our 
patriotic reply ! She wants taming. I believe I am called 
upon for that duty. At least, my friend Antonio-Pericles, 
who occasionally assists me with supplies, hints as much to 
me. You’re an engaged man, or, upon my honour, I 
wouldn’t trust you; but between ourselves, this Greek—and 
he’s quite right—is trying to get her away from the set of 
snuft'y vagabonds who are prompting her for mischief, and 
don’t know how to treat her.” 

While he was speaking Barto Rizzo pushed roughly 
between them, and with a black brush painted the circle 
about Vittoria’s name. 

“ Do you see that ?” said Weisspriess. 

“ I see,” Wilfrid retorted, “that you are ready to meddle 
with the reputation of any woman who is likely to be talked 
about. Don’t do it in my presence.” 

It was natural for Captain Weisspriess to express astonish¬ 
ment at this outburst, and the accompanying quiver of 
Wilfrid’s lip. 

“Austrian military etiquette. Lieutenant Pierson,” he 
said, “ precludes the suspicion that the officers of the 
Imperial army are subject to .dissension in public. We con¬ 
duct these affairs upon a different principle. But I’ll tell 
you what. That fellow’s behaviour may be construed as a 
more than common stretch of incivility. I’ll do you a service. 
I’ll arrest him, and then you can hear tidings of your precious 
letter. We’ll have his confession published.” 

Weisspriess drew his swoid, and commanded the troopers 


86 


VITTOEIA. 


in attendance to lay hands on Barto; but the troopers 
called, and the officer found that they were surrounded. 
Weisspriess shrugged dismally. “The brute must go, J 
suppose,” he said. The situation was one of those which 
were every now and then occurring in the Lombard towns 
and cities, when a chance provocation created a riot that 
became a revolt or not, according to the timidity of the 
ruling powers or the readiness of the disaifected. The 
extent and evident regulation of the crowd operated as a 
warning to the Imperial officers. Weisspriess sheathed his 
sword and shouted, “Way, there ! ” Way was made for him; 
but Wilfrid lingered to scrutinize the man who, for an 
unaccountable reason, appeared to be his peculiar enemy. 
Barto carelessly threaded the crowd, and Wilfrid, finding it 
useless to get out after him, cried, “ Who is he ? Tell me the 
name of that man ?” The question drew a great burst of 
laughter- around him, and exclamations of “ Englishman! 
Englishman!” He turned where there was a clear way left 
for him in the track of his brother officer. 

Comments on the petty disturbance had been all the while 
passing at the Calfe La Scala, where sat Agostino Balderini, 
with Count Medole and others, who, if the order for their 
arrest had been issued, were as safe in that place as in their 
own homes. Their policy, indeed, was to show themselves 
openly abroad. Agostino was enjoying the smoke of paper 
cigarettes, with all prudent regard for the well-being of an 
inflammable beard. Perceiving Wilfrid going by, he said, 
“An Englishman! I continue to hope much from his 
countrymen. I have no right to do so, only they insist on 
it. They have promised, and more than once, to sail a fleet 
to our assistance across the plains of Lombardy, and I 
believe they will—probably in the watery epoch which is to 
follow Metternich. Behold my Carlo approaching. The 
heart of that lad doth so boil the brain of him, he can 
scarcely keep the lid on. What is it now ? Speak, my 
son.” 

Carlo Ammiani had to communicate that he had just seen 
a black circle to Vittoria’s name on two public playbills. 
His endeavour to ape a deliberative gravity while he told 
the tale, roused Agostino’s humouristic ire, 

“ Bound her name ?” said Agostino. 

“ Yes ; in every bill.” 


THE pope’s mouth. 


87 


“ Meaning that she is suspected !” 

“ Meaning any damnable thing you like.” 

“It’s a device of the enemy.” 

Agostino, glad of the pretext to recur to his habitual 
luxurious irony, threw himself back, repeating “It’s a device 
of the enemy. Calculate, my son, that the enemy invariably 
knows all you intend to do; determine simply to astonish 
him with what you do. Intentions have lungs. Carlo, and 
depend on the circumambient air, which, if not designedly 
treacherous, is communicative. Deeds, I need not remark, 
are a different body. It has for many generations been our 
Italian error to imagine a positive blood relationship—not to 
say maternity itself—existing between intentions and deeds. 
Nothing of the sort! There is only the intention of a link to 
unite them. You perceive ? It’s much to be famous for 
fine intentions, so we won’t complain. Indeed, it’s not our 
business to complain, but Posterity’s ; for fine intentions are 
really rich possessions, but they don’t leave grand legacies ; 
that is all. They mean to possess the future : they are 
only the voluptuous sons of the present. It’s my belief, 
Carlino, from observation, apprehension, and other gifts of 
my senses, that our paternal government is not unacquainted 
with our intention to sing a song in a certain opera. And 
it may have learnt our clumsy method of enclosing names 
publicly, at the bidding of a non-appointed prosecutor, so 
to isolate or extinguish them. Who can say ? Oh, ay! 
Yes ! the machinery that can so easily be made rickety is 
to blame; we admit that; but if you will have a conspiracy 
like a Oeneva watch, you must expect any slight interference 
with the laws that govern it to upset the mechanism alto¬ 
gether. Ah—a! look yonder, but not hasbily, my Carlo. 
Checco is nearing us, and he knows that he has fellows after 
him. And if I guess right, he has a burden to deliver to 
one of us.” 

Checco came along at his'usual pace, and it was quite 
evident that he fancied himself under espionage. On two 
sides of the square a suspicious figure threaded its way in 
the line of shade not far behind him. Checco passed the 
caffe looking at nothing but the huge hands he rubbed over 
and over. The manifest agents of the polizia were nearing 
when Checco ran back, and began mouthing as in retort at 
something that had been spoken from the caffe as he shot 


83 


VITTORIA. 


by. He made a gabbling appeal on either side, and 
addressed the pair of apparent monchards, in what, if 
intelligible, should have been the language of earnest 
entreaty. At the first word which the caffe was guilty of 
uttering, a fit of exasperation seized him, and the excitable 
creature plucked at his hat and sent it whirling across the 
open-air tables right through the doorway. Then, with a 
whine, he begged his followers to get his hat back for him. 
They complied. 

“We only called ‘ Illustrissimosaid Agostino, as one 
of the men returned from the interior of the caffe hat in 
hand. 

“ The Signori should have known better—it is an idiot, 
the man replied. He was a novice : in daring to rebuke he 
betrayed his office. 

Checco snatched his hat from his attentive friend grinning, 
and was away in a fiash. Thereupon the caffe laughed, and 
laughed with an abashing vehemence that disconcerted the 
spies. They wavered in their choice of following Checco or 
not; one went a step forward, one pulled back ; the loiterer 
hurried to rejoin his comrade, who was now for a retrograde 
movement, and standing together they swayed like two im¬ 
perfectly jolly fellows, or ballet bandits, each plucking at 
the other, until at last the maddening laughter made them 
break, reciprocate cat-like hisses of abuse, and escape as 
they best could—lamentable figures. 

“ It says well for Milan that the Tedeschi can scrape up 
nothing better from the gutters than rascals the like of 
those for their service,” quoth Agostino. “Eh, signor 
Conte ?” 

“ That enclosure about La Yittoria’s name on the bills is 
correct,” said the person addressed, in a low tone. He 
turned and indicated one who followed from the interior 'of 
the caffe. 

“ H Barto is to be trusted she is not safe,” the latter 
remarked. He produced a paper that had been secreted in 
Checco’s hat. Under the date and the superscription of the 
Pope’s Mouth, “La Yittoria” stood out in the ominous 
heavily-pencilled ring: the initials of Barto Bizzo were in 
a corner. Agostino began smoothing his beard. 

“ He has discovered that she is not trustworthy,” said 
Count Medole, a young man of a premature gravity and 


THE pope’s mouth. 


89 


partial baldness, who spoke habitually with a forefinger 
pressed flat on his long pointed chin. 

“ Do you mean to tell me, Count Medole, that you attach 
importance to a communication of this sort said Carlo, 
forcing an amazement to conceal his anger. 

“ I do, Count Ammiani,” returned the patrician con¬ 
spirator. 

“'You really listen to a man you despise 

“ I do not despise him, my friend.” 

“ You cannot surely tell us that you allow such a man, on 
his sole authority, to blacken the character of the signorina ?” 

“I believe that he has not.” 

“ Believe ? trust him ? Then we are all in his hands. 
'What can you mean ? Come to the signorina herself in¬ 
stantly. Agostino, you now conduct Count Medole to her, 
and save him from the shame of subscribing to the mon¬ 
strous calumny. I beg you to go with our Agostino, Count 
Medole. It is time for you—I honour you for the part you 
have taken; but it is time to act according to your own 
better judgement.” 

Count Medole bowed. 

“ The filthy rat!” cried Ammiani, panting to let out his 
wrath. 

“ A serviceable dog,” Agostino remarked correctingly. 
“ Keep true to the form of animal. Carlo. He has done good 
service in his time.” 

“ You listen to the man ?” Carlo said, now thoroughly 
amazed. 

“ An indiscretion is possible to woman, my lad. She may 
have been indiscreet in some way. I am compelled to admit 
the existence of possibilities.” 

“ Of all men, you, Agostino! You call her daughter, and 
profess to love her.” 

“You forget,” said Agostino sharply. “The question 
concerns the country, not the girl.” He added in an under¬ 
breath, “ I think you are professing that you love her a little 
too strongly, and scarce give her much help as an advocate. 
The matter must be looked into. If Barto shall be found to 
have acted without just grounds, I am certain that Count 
Medole ”—he turned suavely to the nobleman—“ will with- 
di'aw confidence from him; and that will be equivalent to a 


90 


VITTOKIA. 


rope’s-end for Barto. We shall see him to-night at yonr 
house ?” 

“ He will he there,” Medole said. 

“ But the harm’s done ; the mischief’s done ! And what’s 
to follow if you shall choose to consider this vile idiot justi¬ 
fied ?” asked Ammiani. 

“ She sings, and there is no rising,” said Medole. 

“ She is detached from the patriotic battery, for the 
moment: it will be better for her not to sing at all,” said 
Agostino. “ In fact, Barto has merely given us warning 
that—and things look like it—the Fifteenth is likely to be 
an Austrian feast-day. Your arm, my son. We will join 
you to-night, my dear Count. How, Carlo, I was observing, 
it appears to me that the Austrians are not going to be sur¬ 
prised by us, and it affords me exquisite comfort. Fellows 
prepared are never more than prepared for one day and 
another day; and they are sure to be in a state of lax pre¬ 
paration after a first and second disappointment. On the 
contrary, fellows surprised ”—Agostino had recovered his old 
smile again—“ fellows surprised may be expected to make 
use of the inspirations pertaining to genius. Don’t you 
see ?” 

“ Oh, cruel! I am sick of you all I” Carlo exclaimed. 
“ Look at her; think of her, with her pure dream of Italy 
and her noble devotion. And you permit a doubt to be cast 
on her!” 

“ How, is it not true that you have an idea of the country 
not being worthy of her ?” said Agostino, slyly. “ The Chief, 
I fancy, did not take certain facts into his calculation when 
he pleaded that the conspiratrix was the sum and completion 
of the conspirator. You will come to Medole’s to-night. 
Carlo. You need not be too sweet to him, but beware of 
explosiveness. I, a Republican, am nevertheless a practical 
exponent of the sacrifices necessary to unity. I accept the 
local leadership of Medole—on whom I can never look with¬ 
out thinking of an unfeathered pie; and I submit to be 
assisted by the man Barto Rizzo. Do thou likewise, my 
son. Let your enamoured sensations follow that duty, and 
with a breezy space between. A conspiracy is an epitome 
of humanity, with a boiling power beneath it. You’re no 
more than a bit of mechanism—happy if it goes at all!” 

Agostino said that he would pay a visit to Vittoria in the 


LAUEA PIAVENI. 


91 


evening*. Ammiani had determined to hunt out Barto Bizzo 
and the heads of the Clubs before he saw her. It was a 
relief to him to behold in the Piazza the Englishman who 
had exchanged cards with him on the Motterone. Captain 
Gambier advanced upon a ceremonious bow, saying frankly, 
in a more colloquial French than he had employed at their 
first interview, that he had to apologize for his conduct, and 
to request monsieur’s excuse. “ If,” he pursued, “ that lady 
is the person whom I knew formerly in England as Made¬ 
moiselle Belloni, and is now known as Mademoiselle Yittoria 
Campa, may I beg you to inform her that, according to what 
I have heard, she is likely to be in some danger to-morrow ?” 
What the exact nature of the danger was. Captain Gambier 
could not say. 

Ammiani replied : “ She is in need of all her friends,” and 
took the pressure of the Englishman’s hand, who would fain 
have asked more but for the stately courtesy of the Italian’s 
withdrawing salute. Ammiani could no longer doubt that 
Vittoria’s implication in the conspiracy was known. 


CHAPTER XL 

LAURA PIAVENI. 

After dark on the same day antecedent to the outbreak, 
Yittoria, with her faithful Beppo at her heels, left her 
mother to run and pass one comforting hour in the society of 
the signora Laura Piaveni and her children. 

There were two daughters of a parasitical Italian noble¬ 
man, of whom one had married the patriot Giacomo Piaveni, 
and one an Austrian diplomatist, the Commendatore Graf 
von Lenkenstein. Count Serabiglione was traditionally 
parasitical. His ancestors all had moved in Courts, The 
children of the House had illustrious sponsors. The House 
itself was a symbolical sunflower constantly turning toward 
Royalty. Great excuses are to be made for this, the last 
male descendant, whose father in his youth had been an 
Imperial page, and who had been nursed in the conception 
that Italy (or at least Lombardy) was a natural fief of 



92 


VITTOEIA. 


Austria, allied by instinct and by interest to the holders 
of the Alps. Count Serabiglione mixed little with his 
countrymen,—the statement might be inversed,—but when, 
•perchance, he was among them, he talked wdllingly of the 
Tedeschi, and voluntarily declared them to be gross, obsti¬ 
nate, oifensive—bears, in short. At such times he would 
intimate in any cordial ear that the serpent was probably 
a match for the bear in a game of skill, and that the wisdom of 
the serpent was shown in his selection of the bear as his master, 
since, by the ordination of circumstances, master he must 
have. The count would speak pityingly of the poor depraved 
intellects which admitted the possibility of a coming King¬ 
dom of Italy united : the lunatics w^ho preached of it he 
considered a sort of self-elected targets for appointed files of 
Tyrolese jagers. But he was vindictive against him whom 
he called the professional doctrinaire, and he had vile names 
for the man. Acknowledging that Italy mourned her 
present woes, he charged this man with the crime of 
originating them :—and wdiy ? wdiat was his object ? He 
w^as, the count declared in answer, a born intriguer, a lover 
of blood, mad for the smell of it!—an Old Man of the 
Mountain; a sheaf of assassins; and more—the curse of 
Italy 1 There should be extradition treaties all over the 
world to bring this arch-conspirator to justice. The door of 
his conscience had been knocked at by a thousand bleeding 
ghosts, and nothing had opened to them. What was Italy 
in his e^^es ? A chess-board; and Italians w^ere the chess¬ 
men to this cold player with live flesh. England nourished 
the wretch, that she might undermine the peace of the Con¬ 
tinent. Count Serabiglione would w’ork himself up in the 
climax of denunciation, and then look abroad frankly as one 
whose spirit had been relieved. He hated bad men ; and it 
W'as besides necessary for him to denounce somebody, and 
get relief of some kind. Italians edged away from him. He 
was beginning to feel that he had no country. The detested 
title ‘ Young Italy ’ hurried him into fits of wrath. “ I am,” 
he said, “ one of the Old Italians, if a distinction is to be 
made.” He assured his listeners that he was for his com¬ 
mune, his district, and aired his old-Italian prejudices 
delightedly; clapping his hands to the quarrels of Milan 
and Brescia ; Florence and Siena—haply the feuds of vil¬ 
lages—and the common North-Italian jealousy of the chief 


LAURA PIAVENI. 


93 


city. He had iniineroiis capital tales to tell of village fends, 
their date and origin, the stupid effort to heal them, and the 
wider consequent split; saying, “ We have, all Italians, the 
tenacity, the nnforgiveness, the fervent blood of pure 
Hebrews ; and a little more gaiety, perhajos ; together with 
a love of fair things. We can outlive ten races of con¬ 
querors.” 

In this fashion he philosophized, or forced a kind of 
philosophy. But he had married his daughter to an Austrian, 
which was what his countrymen could not overlook, and they 
made him feel it. Little by little, half acquiescing, half 
protesting, and gradually denationalized, the count was 
edged out of Italian society, save of the parasitical olass, 
which he very much despised. He was not a happy man. 
Success at the Imperial Court might have comforted him; 
but a remorseless sensitiveness of his nature tripped his 
steps. Bitter laughter rang throughout Lombardy when, in 
spite of his efforts to save his daughter’s husband, Giacomo 
Piaveni suffered death. harder blow had ever befallen 

the count; it Avas as good as a public proclamation that he 
possessed small influence. To have bent the knee Avas not 
afflicting to this nobleman’s conscience : but it Avas an 
anguish to think of liaAung bent the knee for nothing. 

Giacomo PiaAmni was a noble Italian of the young blood, 
son of a General loved by Eugene. In him the loss of Italy 
was deplorable. He perished by treachery at tlie age of 
tAventy-three years. So splendid Avas this youth in appear¬ 
ance, of so sweet a manner Avith AAmmen, and altogether so 
gentle and gallant, that it Avas a Avidowhood for women to 
have knoAvn him: and at his death the hearts of two 
women who had loved him in rB^alry became bound by a 
sacred tie of friendship. He, though not of distinguished 
birth, had the choice of an almost royal alliance in the first 
blush of his manhood. He refused his chance, pleading in 
excuse to Count Serabiglione, that he AA^as in loAm Avith that 
nobleman’s daughter, Laura; Avhich it flattered the count 
to hear, but he had ever after a contempt for the young 
man’s discretion, and Avas observed to shrug, with the smooth 
sorrowfulness of one who has been a prophet, on the day 
Avhen Giacomo Avas shot. The larger estates of the PiaAmni 
family, then in Giacomo’s hands, were in a famous cheese¬ 
making district, producing a delicious cheese:—“ white as 


94 


VITTORTA. 


lambkins!” the count would ejaculate most dolefully; and 
in a rapture of admiration, “ You would say, a marble 
quarry when you cut into it.” The theme was afflicting, for 
all the estates of Giacomo were for the time forfeit, and the 
pleasant agitation produced among his senses by the men¬ 
tion of the cheese reminded him at the same instant that he 
had to support a widow with two children. The signora 
Piaveni lived in Milan, and the count her father visited her 
twice during the summer months, and wrote to her from his 
fitful Winter residences in various capital cities, to report 
progress in the settled scheme for the recovery of Giacomo’s 
property, as well for his widow as for the heirs of his body. 
“ It is a duty,” Count Serabiglione said emphatically. “ My 
daughter can entertain no proposal until her children are 
duly established; or would she, who is young and lovely 
and archly capricious, continue to decline the very best 
offers of the Milanese nobility, and live on one flat in an old 
quarter of the city, instead of in a bright and handsome 
street, musical with equipages, and full of the shows of life ?” 
In conjunction with certain friends of the signora, the count 
worked diligently for the immediate restitution of the 
estates. He was ably seconded by the young princess of 
Schyll-Weilingen,—by marriage countess of Fohrendorf, 
duchess of Graiitli, in central Germany, by which title she 
passed,—an Austrian princess ; she who had loved Giacomo, 
and would have given all for him, and who now loved his 
widow. The extreme and painful difficulty was that the 
signora Piaveni made no concealment of her abhorrence of 
the House of Austria, and hatred of Austrian rule in Italy. 
The spirit of her dead husband had come to her from the 
grave, and warmed a frame previously indifferent to any¬ 
thing save his personal merits. It had been covertly com¬ 
municated to her that if she performed due submission to 
the authorities, and lived for six months in good legal, that 
is to say, non-patriotic odour, she might hope to have the 
estates. The duchess had obtained this mercy for her, and 
it was much ; for Giacomo’s scheme of revolt had been con¬ 
ceived with a subtlety of genius, and contrived on a scale 
sufficient to incense any despotic lord of such a glorious 
milch-cow as Lombardy. Unhappily the signora was more 
inspired by the remembrance of her husband than by con¬ 
sideration for her children. She received disaffected per- 


LAURA PIAVENI. 


95 


sons : she subscribed ber money ostentationsly for notoriously 
]patriotic purposes; and she who, in her father’s Como villa, 
had been a shy speechless girl, nothing more than beautiful, 
had become celebrated for her public letters, and the ardour 
of declamation against the foreigner which characterized her 
style. In the face of such facts, the estates continued to be 
withheld from her governance. Austria could do that: she 
could wreak her spite against the woman, but she respected 
her own law even in a conquered land : the estates were 
not confiscated, and not absolutely sequestrated ; and, indeed, 
money coming from them had been sent to her for the 
education of her children. It lay in unopened official 
envelopes, piled one upon another, quarterly remittances, 
horrible as blood of slaughter in her sight. Count Serabi- 
glione made a point of counting the packets always within 
the first five minutes of a visit to his daughter. He said 
nothing, but was careful to see to the proper working of the 
lock of the cupboard where the precious deposits were kept, 
and sometimes in forgetfulness he carried off the key. 
When his daughter reclaimed it, she observed, “ Pray 
believe me quite as anxious as yourself to preserve these 
documents.” And the count answered, “ They represent 
the estates, and are of legal value, though the amount is 
small. They represent your protest, and the admission of 
your claim. They are priceless.” 

In some degree, also, they compensated him for the 
expense he was put to in providing for his daughter’s sub¬ 
sistence and that of her children. For there, at all events, 
visible before his eyes, was the value of the money, if not the 
money expended. He remonstrated with Laura for leaving 
it more than necessarily exposed. She replied, “ My people 
know what that money means!” implying, of course, that 
no one in her house would consequently touch it. Yet it 
was reserved for the count to find it gone. 

The discovery w^as made by the astounded nobleman on 
the day preceding Vittoria’s appearance at La Scala. His 
daughter being absent, he had visited the cupboard merely 
to satisfy an habitual curiosity. The cupboard was open, 
and had evidently been ransacked. He rang up the domestics, 
and would have charged them all with having done violence 
to the key, but that on reflection he considered this to be a 
way of binding faggots together, and he resolved to take 


96 


VITTORIA. 


them one by one, like the threading Jesuit that he was, and 
so get a Judas. Laura’s return saved him from much exer¬ 
cise of his peculiar skill. She, with a cool “Ebbene!” asked 
him how long he had expected the money to remain there. 
Upon which, enraged, he accused her of devoting the money 
to the accursed patriotic cause. And here they came to a 
curious open division. 

“ Be content, my father,” she said ; “ the money is my 
husband’s, and is expended on his behalf.” 

“ You waste it among the people who were the cause of his 
ruin !” her father retorted. 

“ You presume me to have returned it to the Government, 
possibly ?” 

“ I charge you with tossing it to your so-called patriots.” 

“ Sir, if I have done that, i have done well.” 

“ Hear her !” cried the count to the attentive ceiling ; and 
addressing her with an ironical “ madame,” he begged per¬ 
mission to inquire of her whether haply she might be the 
person in the pay of Bevolutionists who was about to appear 
at La Scala, under the name of the signorina Vittoria. “ For 
you are getting dramatic in your pose, my Laura,” he added, 
familiarizing the colder tone of his irony. “You are begin¬ 
ning to stand easily in attitudes of dehance to your own 
father.” 

“ That I may practise how to provoke a paternal Govern¬ 
ment, you mean,” she rejoined, and was quite a match for him 
in dialectics. 

The count chanced to allude further to the signorina 
Yittoria. 

“ Do you know much of that lady ?” she asked. 

“ As much as is known,” said he. 

They looked at one another; the count thinking, “ I gave 
to this girl an excess of brains, in my folly!” 

Compelled to drop his eyes, and vexed by the tacit defeat, 
he pursued, “You expect great things from her ?” 

“ Great,” said his daughter. 

“ Well, well,” he murmured acquiescingly, while sounding 
within himself for the part to play. “Well—yes ! she may 
do what you expect.” 

“ There is not the slightest doubt of her capacity,” said his 
daughter, in a tone of such perfect conviction that the count 
was immediately and irresistibly tempted to play the part of 


LAUEA PIAVENI. 


97 


sagacious, kindly, tolerant but foreseeing father; and in this 
becoming character he exposed the risks her party ran in 
trusting anything of weight to a woman. Not that he decried 
women. Out of their sphere he did not trust them, and he 
simply objected to them when out of their sphere: the last 
four words being urtered staccato. 

“ But we trust her to do what she has undertaken to do,” 
said Laura. 

The count brightened prodigiously from his suspicion to a 
certainty ; and as he was still smiling at the egregious trap 
his clever but unskilled daughter had fallen into, he found 
himself listening incredulously to her plain additional sen¬ 
tence :— 

“ She has easy command of three octaves.” 

By which the allusion was transformed from politics to 
Art. Had Laura reserved this cunning turn a little further, 
yielding to the natural temptation to increase the shock of 
the antithetical battery, she would have betrayed herself; 
but it came at the right moment: the count gave up his 
arms. He told her that this signorina Vittoria was suspected. 
“ Whom will they not suspect!” interjected Laura. He 
assured her that if a conspiracy had ripened it must fail. 
She was to believe that he abhorred the part of a spy or 
informer, but he was bound, since she was reckless, to watch 
over his daughter; and also bound, that he might be of 
service to her, to earn by service to others as much power as 
he could reasonably hope to obtain. Laura signified that he 
argued excellently well. In a fit of unjustified doubt of her 
sincerity, he complained, with a querulous snap :— 

“ You have your own ideas ; you have your own ideas. 
You think me this and that. A man must be employed.” 

“ And this is to account for your occupation ?” she 
remarked. 

“Employed, I say!” the count reiterated fretfully. He 
was unmasking to no purpose, and felt himself as on a slope, 
having given his adversary vantage. 

“ So that there is no choice for you, do you mean ?” 

The count set up a staggering affirmative, but knocked it 
over with its natural enemy as soon as his daughter had 
said, “ Not being for Italy, you must necessarily be agaijist 
her:—I admit that to be the position !” 

“No!” he cried; “no: there is no question of ‘for’ or 

F 


0 ^ 


VITTORIA. 


‘ against/ as yon are aware. ‘ Italy, and not Revolntion :* 
that is my motto.” 

“ Or, in other words, ‘ The Impossible,’ ” said Laura. “A 
perfect motto!” 

Again the count looked at her, with the remorseful 
thought: “ I certainly gave you too much brains.” 

He smiled: “ If you could only believe it not impos¬ 
sible !’ 

“ Do you really imagine that ‘ Italy without Revolution ’ 
does not mean ‘ Austria ’ ?” she inquired. 

She had discovered how much he, and therefore his party, 
suspected, and now she had reasons for wishing him away. 
Not daring to show symptoms of restlessness, she offered 
him the chance of recovering himself on the crutches of an 
explanation. He accepted the assistance, praising his wits 
for their sprightly divination, and went through a long- 
winded statement of his views for the welfare of Italy, quot¬ 
ing his favourite Berni frequently, and forcing the occasion 
for that jolly poet. Laura gave quiet attention to all, and 
when he Avas exhausted at the close, said meditatively, “Yes. 
^Yell; you are older. It may seem to you that I shall think 
as you do when I have had a similar, or the same, length of 
experience.” 

This provoking reply caused her father to jump up from 
his chair and spin round for his hat. She rose to speed him 
forth. 

“Tt may seem to me !” he kept muttering. “ It may seem 
to me that when a daughter gets married—addio!—she is 
nothing but her husband.” 

“ Ay ! ay ! if it might be so !” the signora wailed out. 

The count hated tears, considering them a clog to all 
useful machinery. He w^as departing, when through the 
open window a noise of scuffling in the street below arrested 
him. 

“ Has it commenced ?” he said, starting. 

“ What ?” asked the signora, coolly; and made him pause. 

“But—but—but!” he answered, and had the grace to 
spare her ears. The thought in him was : “ But that I had 
some faith in my wife, and don’t admire the devil sufficiently, 
I AYOuld accuse him point-blank, for, by Bacchus! you are as 
clever as he.” 

It is a point in the education of parents that they should 


LAURA PIAVENI. 


99 


learn to apprehend humbly the compliment o£ being out¬ 
witted by their own offspring. 

Count Serabiglione leaned out of the window and saw 
that his horses were safe and the coachman handy. There 
were two separate engagements going on between angry 
twisting couples. 

“ Is there a habitable town in Italy ?” the count exclaimed 
frenziedly. First he called to his coachman to drive away, 
next to wait as if nailed to the spot. He cursed the revo¬ 
lutionary spirit as the mother of vices. While he was gazing 
at the fray, the door behind him opened, as he knew by the 
rush of cool air which struck his temples. He fancied that 
his daughter was hurrying off in obedience to a signal, and 
turned upon her just as Laura was motioning to a female 
figure in the doorway to retire. 

“ Who is this ?” said the count. ^ 

A veil was over the strange lady’s head. She was excited, 
and breathed quickly. The count brought forward a chair 
to her, and put on his best court manner. Laura caressed 
her, whispering, ere she replied: “ The signorina Vittoria 
Homana !—Biancolla!—Benarriva! ” and numerous other 
names of inventive endearment. But the count was too 
sharp to be thrown off the scent. “Aha!” he said, “do I 
see her one evening before the term appointed F” and bowed 
profoundly. “ The signorina Yittoria !” 

She threw up her veil. 

“ Success is certain,” he remarked and applauded, holding 
one hand as a snuff-box for the fingers of the other to tap 
on. 

“ Signor Conte, you must not praise me before you have 
heard me.” 

“ To have seen you I” 

“ The voice has a wider dominion, signor Conte.’* 

“ The fame of the signorina’s beauty will soon be far wider. 
Y^as Yenus a cantatrice ?” 

She blushed, being unable to continue this sort of Mayfly¬ 
shooting dialogue, but her first charming readiness had 
affected the proficient social gentleman very pleasantly, and 
with fascinated eyes he hummed and buzzed about her like 
a moth at a lamp. Suddenly his head dived: “ Nothing, 
nothing, signorina,” he said, brushing delicately at her 
dress; “I thought it might be paint.” He smiled to 

LWC- h2 


100 


VITTOEIA. 


reassure her, and then he dived again, murmuring: “It 
must be something sticking to the dress. Pardon me.” 
With that he went to the bell. “ I will ring up my 
daughter’s maid. Or Laura—where is Laura ?” 

The signora Piaveni had walked to the window. This 
antiquated fussiness of the dilettante little nobleman was 
sickening to her. 

“ Probably you expect to discover a revolutionary symbol 
in the lines of the signorina’s dress,” she said. 

»“ A revolutionary symbol!—my dear! my dear!” The 
count reproved his daughter. “ Is not our signorina a pure 
artist, accomplishing easily three octaves ? aha! Three !” 
and he rubbed his hands. “ But, three good octaves !” he 
addressed Vittoria seriously and admonishingly. “ It is a 
fortune—millions! It is precisely the very grandest 
heritage ! It is an army !” 

“ I trust that it may be !” said Yittoria, with so deep and 
earnest a ring of her voice that the count himself, malicious 
as his ejaculations had been, was astonished. At that 
instant Laura cried from the window: “ These horses will 
go mad.” 

The exclamation had the desired effect. 

“ Eh ?—pardon me, signorina,” said the count, moving 
half-way to the window, and then askant for his hat. The 
clatter of the horses’ hoofs sent him dashing through the 
doorway, at which place his daughter stood Avith his hat 
extended. He thanked and blessed her for the kindly atten- 
tion, and in terror lest the signorina should think evil of him 
as ‘one of the generation of the hasty,’ he said, “Were it 
anything but horses ! anything but horses ! one’s horses !— 
ha !” The audible hoofs called him off. He kissed the tips 
of his fingers, and tripped out. 

The signora stepped rapidly to the window, and leaning 
there, cried a word to the coachman, who signalled perfect 
comprehension, and immediately the count’s horses were on 
their hind-legs, chafing and pulling to right and left, and 
the street was tumultuous with them. She flung down the 
window, seized Yittoria’s cheeks in her two hands, and 
pressed the head upon her bosom. “ He will not disturb us 
again,” she said, in quite a new tone, sliding her hands from 
the cheeks to the shoulders and along the arms to the 
fingers’-ends, which they clutched lovingly. “ He is of the 


LAURA PIAVENI. 


101 


old school, friend of my heart! and besides, he has but two 
pairs of horses, and one he keeps in Vienna. We live in the 
hope that our masters will pay us better! Tell me! you are 
in good health ? All is well with you ? Will they have to - 
put paint on her soft cheeks to-morrow ? Little, if they 
hold the colour as full as now ? My Sandra! arnica! should 
I have been jealous if Giacomo had known you ? On my 
soul, I cannot guess ! But, you love what he loved. He 
seems to live for me when they are talking of Italy, and you 
send your eyes forward as if you saw the country free. God 
help me! how I have been containing myself for the last 
hour and a half !” 

The signora dropped in a seat and laughed a languid 
laugh. 

“ The little ones ? I will ring for them. Assunta shall 
bring them down in their night-gowns if they are undressed ; 
and we will muffle the windows, for my little man will be 
wanting his song; and did you not promise him the great 
one which is to raise Italy—his mother, from the dead ? Ho 
you remember our little fellow’s eyes as he tried to see the 
picture ? I fear I force him too much, and there’s no need 
■—not a bit.” 

The time was exciting, and the signora spoke excitedly. 
Messina and Reggio were in arms. South Italy had given 
the open signal. It was near upon the hour of the unmask¬ 
ing of the great Lombard conspiracy, and Vittoria, standing^ 
there, was the beacon-light of it. Her presence filled Laura 
with transports of exultation ; and shy of displaying it, and 
of the theme itself, she let her tongue run on, and satisfied 
herself by smoothing the hand of the brave girl on her chin, 
and plucking with little loving tugs at her skirts. In doing 
this she suddenly gave a cry, as if stung. 

“ You carry pins,” she said. And inspecting the skirts 
more closely, “ You have a careless maid in that creature 
Giacinta ; she lets paper stick to your dress. What is this ?” 

Vittoria turned her head, and gathered up her dress to 
see. 

“ Pinned with the butterfly!” Laura spoke under her 
breath. 

Vittoria asked what it meant. 

“ Nothing—nothing,” said her friend, and rose, pulling 
her eagerly toward the lamp. 


102 


VITTOEIA. 


A small bronze butterfly secured a square piece of paper 
with clipped corners to her dress. Two words were written 
on it 

“ Sei sospetta.” 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE BRONZE BDTTERFLY. 

The two women were facing one another in a painful 
silence when Carlo Ammiani was announced to them. He 
entered with a rapid stride, and struck his hands together 
gladly at sight of Vittoria. 

Laura met his salutation by lifting the accusing butterfly 
attached to Yittoria’s dress. 

“ Yes; I expected it,” he said, breathing quick from 
recent exertion. “ They are kind—they give her a personal 
warning. Sometimes the dagger heads the butterfly. I have 
seen the mark on the Play-bills affixed to the signorina’s 
name.” 

“ What does it mean ?” said Laura, speaking huskily, 
with her head bent over the bronze insect. “What can it 
^ean ?” she asked again, and looked up to meet a covert 
answer. 

“ Unpin it.” Vittoria raised her arms as if she felt the 
thing to be enveloping her. 

The signora loosened the pin from its hold; but dreading 
lest she thereby sacrificed some possible clue to the mystery, 
she hesitated in her action, and sent an intolerable shiver of 
spite through Yittoria’s frame, at whom she gazed in a cold 
and cruel way, saying, “ Don’t tremble.” And again, “ Is it 
the doing of that garritrice magrezza^ whom you call la 
Lazzeruola ? Speak. Can you trace it to her hand ? Who 
put the plague-mark upon you ?” 

Vittoria looked steadily away from her. 

“ It means just this,” Carlo interposed;—“there ! now it’s 
off ; and, signorina, I entreat you to think nothing of it,—it 
means that any one who takes a chief part in the game we 
play, shall and must provoke* all fools, knaves, and idiots to 



THE BEONZE BUTTERFLY. 


103 


think and do their worst. They can’t imagine a pure devo¬ 
tion. Yes, I see—‘ Sei sospetta.^ They would write their 
Sei sospetta upon St. Catherine in the Wheel. Put it out of 
your mind. Pass it.” 

“ But they suspect her; and why do they suspect her ?” - 
Laura questioned vehemently. “ I ask, is it a Conservatorio 
rival, or the brand of one of the Clubs ? She has no 
answer.” 

“ Observe.” Carlo laid the paper under her eyes. Three 
angles were clipped, the fourth was doubled under. He 
turned it back and disclosed the initials B. R. “This also is 
the work of our man-devil, as I thought. I begin to think 
that we shall be eternally thwarted, until we first clear our 
Italy of its vermin. Here is a weazel, a snake, a tiger in 
one. They call him the Great Cat. He fancies himself a 
patriot,—he is only a conspirator. I denounce him, but he 
gets the faith of people, our Agostino among them, I believe. 
The energy of this wretch is terrific. He has the vigour of 
a fasting saint. Myself—I declare it to you, signora, with 
shame, I know what it is to fear this man. He has Satanic 
blood, and the worst is, that the Chief trusts him.” 

“ Then, so do I,” said Laura. 

“ And I,” Vittoria echoed her. 

A sudden squeeze beset her fingers. “ And I trust you'* 
Laura said to her. “ But there has been some indiscretion. 
My child, wait: give no heed to me, and have no feelings. 
Carlo, my friend—my husband’s boy-brother-in-arms ! let 
her teach you to be generous. She must have been indis¬ 
creet. Has she friends among the Austrians ? I have one, 
and it is known, and I am not suspected. But, has she ? 
What have you said or done that might cause them to sus¬ 
pect you ? Speak, Sandra mia.” 

It was difficult for Vittoria to speak upon the theme, 
which made her appear as a criminal replying to a charge. 
At last she said, “ English: I have no foreign friends but 
English. I remember nothing that I have done.—Yes, I 
have said I thought I might tremble if I was led out to be 
shot.” 

“ Pish ! tush !’^ Laura checked her. “ They flog women, 
they do not shoot them. They shoot men.” 

“ That is our better fortune,” said Ammiani. 

But, Sandra, my sister,” Laura persisted now, in uelo 


104 


VITTORIA. 


dioTis coaxing tones. “ Can you not lielp us to guess ? I am 
troubled : I am stung. It is for your sake I feel it so. Can’t 
you imagine wbo did it, for instance ?” 

‘•No, signora, I cannot,” Vittoria replied. 

“ You can’t guess ?” 

“ I cannot help you.” 

“You •will not!” said the irritable woman. “Have you 
noticed no one passing near you ?” 

“ A woman brushed by me as I entered this street. I 
remember no one else. And my Beppo seized a man who 
was spying on me, as he said. That is all I can remember.” 

Vittoria turned her face to Ammiani. 

“ Barto Bizzo has lived in England,” he remarked, half to 
himself. “ Did you come across a man called Barto Rizzo 
there, signorina ? I suspect him to be the author of this.” 

At the name of Barto Rizzo, Laura’s eyes widened, 
awakening a memory in Ammiani; and her face had a 
spectral wanness. 

“ I must go to my chamber,” she said. “ Talk of it to¬ 
gether. I will be with you soon.” 

She left them. 

Ammiani bent over to Vittoria’s ear. “ It was this man 
who sent the warning to Giacomo, the signora’s husband, 
which he despised, and which would have saved him. It is 
the only good thing I know of Barto Rizzo. Pardon her.” 

“ I do,” said the girl, now weeping. 

“ She has evidently a rooted superstitious faith in these 
revolutionary sign-marks. They are contagious to her. She 
loves you, and believes in you, and will kneel to you for foi*- 
giveness by-and-by. Her misery is a disease. She thinks 
now, ‘ If my husband had given heed to the warning 1’ ” 

“Yes, I see how her heart works,” said Vittoria. “ You 
knew her husband, signor Carlo r”’ 

“ I knew him. I served under him. He was the brother 
of my love. I shall have no other.” 

Vittoria placed her hand for Ammiani to take it. He 
joined his own to the fevered touch. The heart of the young 
man swelled most ungovernably, but the perils of the mor¬ 
row were imaged by him, circling her as wdth a tragic flame, 
and he had no word for his passion. 

The door opened, when a noble little boy bounded into the 
room, followed by a little girl in pink and white, like a 


THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY. 


105 


streamer in the steps of her brother. With shouts, and with 
arms thrown forward, they flung themselves upon Vittoria, 
the boy claiming all her lap, and the girl struggling for a 
share of the kingdom. Vittoria kissed them, crying, “No, 
no, no, Messer Jack, this is a republic, and not an empire, 
and you are to have no rights of ‘ first comeand Amalia 
sits on one knee, and you on one knee, and you sit face to 
face, and take hands, and swear to be satisfied.” 

“ Then I desire not to be called an English Christian 
name, and you will call me Giacomo,” said the boy. 

Vittoria sang, in mountain-notes, “ Giacomo !—Giacomo ! 
—Giac-giac-giac .... como !” 

The children listened, glistening up at her, and in con¬ 
junction jumped and shouted for more. 

“ More ?” said Vittoiia ; “ but is the signor Carlo no friend 
of ours ? and does he wear a magic ring that makes him 
invisible ?” 

“ Let the German girl go to him,” said Giacomo, and 
^strained his throat to reach at kisses. 

“ I am not a German girl,” little Amalia protested, refusing 
to go to Carlo Ammiani under that stigma, though a delight¬ 
ful haven of open arms and knees, and fillijDping fingers, 
invited her. 

“ She is not a German girl, 0 signor Giacomo,” said Vit¬ 
toria, in the theatrical manner. 

“ She has a German name.” 

“It’s not a German name!” the little girl shrieked. 

Giacomo set Amalia to a miauling tune. 

“ So, you hate the Duchess of Graatli !” said Vittoria. 
“ Very well. I shall remember.” 

The boy declared that he did not hate his mother’s friend 
and sister’s godmother: he rather liked her, he really liked 
her, he loved her; |)ut he loathed the name “ Amalia,” and 
could not understand why the duchess would be a German. 
He concluded by miauling “Amalia” in the triumph of 
contempt. 

“ Cat, begone !” said Vittoria, promptly setting him down 
on his feet, and little Amalia at the same time perceiving 
that practical sympathy only required a ring at the bell for 
it to come out, straightway pulled the wires within herself, 
and emitted a doleful wail that gave her sole possession of 
Vittoria’s bosom, where she was allowed to bring her teai-s 


106 


VITTORIA. 


to an end very comfortingly. Giacomo meanwhile, his body 
bent in an arch, plucked at Carlo Ammiani’s wrists with 
savagely playful tugs, and took a stout boy’s lesson in the 
art of despising what he coveted. He had only to ask for 
pardon. Finding it necessary, he came shyly up to Yittoria, 
who put Amalia in his way, kissing whom, he was himself 
tenderly kissed. 

“ But girls should not cry!” Yittoria reproved the little 
woman. 

“ Why do you cry ?” asked Amalia simply. 

“ See ! she has been crying.” Giacomo appropriated 
the discovery, perforce of loudness, after the fashion of his 
sex. 

“ Why does our Yittoria cry ?” both the children 
clamoured. 

“Because your mother is such a cruel sister to her,” said 
Laura, passing up to them from the doorway. She drew 
Yittoria’s head against her breast, looked into her eyes, and 
sat down among them. Yittoria sang one low-toned soft 
song, like the voice of evening, before they were dismissed 
to their beds. She could not obey Giacomo’s demand for a 
martial air, and had to plead that she was tired. 

When the children had gone, it was as if a truce had 
ended. The signora and Ammiani fell to a brisk counter¬ 
change of questions relating to the mysterious suspicion 
which had fallen upon Yittoria. Despite Laura’s love for 
her, she betrayed her invincible feeling that there must be 
some grounds for special or temporary distrust. 

“ The lives that hang on it knock at me here,” she said, 
touching under her throat with fingers set like falling 
arrows. 

But Ammiani, who moved in the centre of conspiracies, 
met at their councils, and knew their heads, and frequently 
combated their schemes, w^as not possessed by the same pro¬ 
found idea of their potential command of hidden facts and 
sovereign wisdom. He said, “We trust too much to one 
man. We are compelled to trust him, but we trust too 
much to him. I mean this man, this devil, Barto Rizzo. 
Signora, signora, he must be spoken of. He has dislocated 
the plot. He is the fanatic of the revolution, and we are 
trusting him as if he had full sway of reason. What is the 
consequence ? The Chief is absent: he is now as I believe, 


THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY. 


107 


in Genoa. All the plan for the rising- is accurate; tho 
instruments are ready, and we are paralyzed. I have been 
to three houses to-night, and where, two hours previously, 
there was union and concert, all are irresolute and divided. 
I have hurried off a messenger to the Chief. Until we hear 
from him, nothing can be done. I left Ugo Corte storming 
against us Milanese, threatening, as usual, to woi-k without 
us, and have a Bergamasc and Brescian Republic of his own. 
Count Medole is for a week’s postponement. Agostino smiles 
and chuckles, and talks his poetisms.” 

“ Until you hear from the Chief, nothing is to be done ?** 
Laura said passionately. “ Are we to remain in suspense ? 
Impossible ! I cannot bear it. We have plenty of ai-ms in 
the city. Oh, that we had cannon! I worship cannon! 
They are the Gods of battle ! But if we surprise the citadel; 

•—one true shock of alarm makes a mob of an army. I have 
heard my husband say so. Let there be no delay. That is 
my word.” 

“ But, signora, do you see that all concert about the signal 
is lost ?” 

“ My friend, I see something Laura nodded a significant 
half-meaning at him. “ And perhaps it will be as well. Go 
at once. See that another signal is decided upon. Oh! 
because we* are ready—ready. Inaction now is uttermost 
anguish—kills the heart. AVhat number of the white 
butchers have we in the city to-night ?” 

“ They are marching in at every gate. I saw a regiment 
of Hungarians coming up the Borgo della Stella. Two 
fresh squadrons of Uhlans in the Corso Francesco. In the 
Piazza d’Armi artillery is encamped.” 

“ The better for Brescia, for Bergamo, for Padua, for 
Venice !” exclaimed Laura. “ There is a limit to their power. 
We Milanese can match them. For days and days 1 have 
had a dream lying in my bosom that Milan was soon to 
breathe. Go, my brother; go to Barto Rizzo; gather him 
and Count Medole, Agostino, and Colonel Corte—to whom 
I kiss my fingers—gather them together, and squeeze their 
brains for the one spark of divine fire in this darkness which 
must exist where there are so many thorough men bent upon 
a sacred enterprise. And, Carlo,”—Laura checked her ner¬ 
vous voice,—“ don’t think I am declaiming to you from one 
of my ‘ Midnight Lamps.’ ” (She spoke of tho title of her 


108 


VITTORIA. 


pamphlets to the Italian people.) “Yon feel among ns 
women very much as Ag’ostino and Colonel Corte feel when 
the boy Carlo airs his impetuosities in their presence. Yes, 
my fervour makes a philosopher of you. That is human 
nature. Pity me, pardon me, and do my bidding.” 

The comparison of Ammiani’s present sentiments to those 
of the elders of the conspiracy, when his mouth was open in 
their midst, was severe and masterful, for the young man rose 
instantly without a thought in his head. 

He remarked : “ I will tell them that the signorina does 
not give the signal.” 

“ Tell them that the name she has chosen shall be Vittoria 
still; but say, that she feels a shadow of suspicion to be an 
injunction upon her at such a crisis, and she will serve silently 
and humbly until she is rightly known, and her time comes. 
She is willing to appear before them, and submit to interro¬ 
gation. She knows her innocence, and knowing that they 
work for the good of the country, she, if it is their will, is 
content to be blotted out of all participation :—all! She 
abjures all for the common welfare. Say that. And say, 
to-morrow night the rising must be. Oh ! to-morrow night! 
It is my husband to me.” 

Laura Piaveni crossed her arms upon her bosom. 

Ammiani was moving from them with a downward face, 
when a bell-note of Vittoria’s voice arrested him. 

“ Stay, signor Carlo ; I shall sing to-morrow night.” 

The widow heard her through that thick emotion which 
had just closed her speech with its symbolical sensuous 
rapture. Divining opposition fiercely, like a creature 
thwarted when athirst for the Avells, she gave her a terrible 
look, and then said cajolingly, as far as absence of sweetness 
could make the tones pleasant, “ Yes, you will sing, but you 
will not sing that song.” 

“ It is that song which I intend to sing, signora.” 

“When it is interdicted?” 

“ There is only one whose interdict I can acknowledge.” 

“ You will dare to sing in defiance of me ?” 

“I dare nothing when I simply do my duty.” 

Ammiani went up to the window, and leaned there, eyeing 
the lights leading down to the crowding Piazza. He wished 
that he were among the crowd, and might not hear those 
sharp stinging utterances coming from Laura, and Yittoriu’s 


THE BEONZE BUTTERFLY. 


109 


unwavering replies, less frequent, but firmer, and gravely 
solid. Laura spent her energy in taunts, but Vittoria spoke 
only of her resolve, and to the point. It was, as his military 
instincts framed the simile, like the venomous crackling of 
skirmishing rifles before a fortress, that answered slowly with 
its volume of sound and sweeping shot. He had the vision 
of himself pleading to secure her safety, and in her hearing, 
on the Motterone, where she had seemed so simple a damsel, 
albeit nobly enthusiastic : too fair, too gentle to be stationed 
in any corner of the conflict at hand. Partly abased by the 
remembrance of his brainless intercessions then, and of the 
laughter which had greeted them, and which the signora had 
recently recalled, it w^as nevertheless not all in self-abase¬ 
ment (as the momentary recognition of a splendid character 
is commonly wdth men) that he perceived the stature of Vit- 
toria’s soul. Remembering also what the Chief had spoken 
of women, Ammiaiii thought “ Perhaps he has known one 
such as she.” The passion of the young man’s heart mag¬ 
nified her image. He did not wonder to see the signora 
acknowledge herself worsted in the conflict. 

“ She talks like the edge of a sword,” cried Laura, des¬ 
perately, and dropped into a chair. “ Take her home, and 
convince her, if you can, on the way. Carlo. I go to the 
Duchess of Graatli to-night. She has a reception. Take 
this girl home. She says she will sing : she obeys the Chief, 
and none but the Chief. We will not suppose that it is her 
desire to shine. She is suspected; she is accused; she is 
branded ; there is no general faith in her ; yet she will hold 
the torch to-morrow night:—and what ensues ? Some will 
move, some turn back, some run headlong over to treachery, 
some hang irresolute : all are for the shambles ! The blood 
is on her head.” 

“ 1 will excuse myself to you another time,” said Yittoria. 
“ I love you, signora Laura.” 

“ You do, you do, or you would not think of excusing 
yourself to me,” said Laura. “ But now, go. You have cut 
me in two. Carlo Ammiani may succeed where I have failed, 
and I have used every w^eapon; enough to make a mean 
creature hate me for life and kiss we with transports. Do 
your best, Carlo, and let it be your utmost.” 

It remained for Ammiani to assure her that their views 
v.'cro dilferent. 


110 


vittoria. 


“ Tlie signorma persists in her determination to carry out 
the programme indicated by the Chief, and refuses to be 
diverted from her path by the false suspicions of subordi¬ 
nates.” He employed a sententious phraseology instinct¬ 
ively, as men do when they are nervous, as well as when 
they justify the cynic’s definition of the uses of speech.- 
“ The signorina is, in my opinion, right. If she draws back, 
she publicly accepts the blot upon her name. I speak against 
my own feelings and my wishes.” 

“ Sandra, do you hear ?” exclaimed Laura. “ This is a 
friend’s interpretation of your inconsiderate wilfulness.” 

Vittoria was content to rejily, “ The signor Carlo judges 
of me differently, 

“ Gro, then, and be fortified by him in this headstrong 
folly.” Laura motioned her hand, and laid it on her face. 

Vittoria knelt and enclosed her with her arms, kissing her 
knees. 

“ Beppo waits for me at the house-door,” she said; but 
Carlo chose not to hear of this shadow-like Beppo. 

“ You have nothing to say for her save that she clears her 
name by giving the signal,” Laura burst out on his temperate 
“ Addio,” and started to her feet. '‘Well, let it be so. 
Lruitless blood again! A rivederla to you both. To-night 
I am in the enemy’s camp. They play with open cards. 
Amalia tells me all she knows by what she disguises. I 
may learn something. Come to me to-morrow. My Sandra, 
I will kiss you. These shudderings of mine have no 
meaning.” 

The signora embraced her, and took Ammiani’s salute 
upon her fingers. 

“Sour fingers!” he said. She leaned her cheek to him, 
whispering, “ I could easily be persuaded to betray you.” 

He answered, “ I must have some merit in not betravinor 
myself.” 

“At each elbow!” she laughed. “ You show the thumps 
of an electric battery at each elbow, and expect your Goddess 
of lightnings not to see that she moves you. Go. You 
have not sided with me, and I am right, and I am a woman. 
By the way, Sandra mia, I would beg the loan of your 
Beppo for two hours or less.” 

Vittoria placed Beppo at her disposal. 

“ And you run home to bed,” continued Laura. “ Ileason 


THE PLOT OP THE SIGNOH ANTONIO. 


Ill 


comes to yon obstinate people wben yon are left alone for a 
time in the dark.” 

She hardly listened to Vittoria’s statement that the chief 
singers in the new opera were engaged to attend a meeting 
at eleven at night at the house of the maestro Hocco Hicci, 


CHAPTER Xin. 

THE rLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO. 

There was no concealment as to Laura’s object in making 
request for the services of Beppo. She herself knew it to 
be obvious that she intended to probe and cross-examine the 
man, and in her wilfulness she chose to be obtuse to opinion. 
She did not even blush to lean a secret ear above the stairs 
that she might judge, by the tones of Vittoria’s voice U 2 :)on 
her giving Beppo the order to wait, whether she was at the 
same time conveying a hint for guardedness. But Vittoria 
said not a word : it was Ammiani who gave the order. “ I 
am despicable in distrusting her for a single second,” said 
Laura. That did not the less encourage her to question 
Beppo rigorously forthwith; and as she was not to be 
deceived by an Italian’s affectation of simplicity, she let him 
answer two or three times like a plain fool, and then abruptly 
accused him of standing prepared with these answers. 
Beppo, within his own bosom, immediately ascribed to his 
sagacious instinct the mere spirit of opposition and dislike 
to serv^e any one save his own youug mistress which had 
caused him to irritate the signora and be on his guard. He 
proffered a candid admission of the truth of the charge; 
adding, that he stood likewise prepared with an unlimited 
number of statements. “ Questions, illustrious siguora, 
invariably put me on the defensive, and seem to cry for a 
return thrust; and this I account for by the fact that my 
mother—the blessed little woman now among the saints !— 
was questioned, brows and heels, by a ferrnginously-faced 
old judge at the momentous period when she carried me. 
So that, a question—and I show point; but ask me for a 
statement, and, ah, signora!” Beppo delivered a sweep of 
the arm, as to indicate the siiontaneous flow of his tongue. 



112 


VITTORIA. 


“ I tlimt,” Raid Lanra, “ you have been a soldier, and a 
serving-man.” 

“ And a scene-shifter, most noble signora, at La Scala.” 

“ You accompanied the signor Mertyrio to England when 
he was wounded ?” 

“I did.” 

“ And there you beheld the signorina Yittoria, who was 
then bearing the name of Emilia Belloni ?” 

“ Which name she changed on her arrival in Italy, illus¬ 
trious signora, for that of Yittoria Campa—‘ sulV campo della 
gloria’ —ah! ah I—her own name being an attraction to the 
blow-flies in her own country. All this is true.” 

“ It should be a comfort to you ! The Signor Mertyrio . . 

Beppo writhed his person at the continuance of the ques¬ 
tionings, and obtaining a pause, he rushed into liis state¬ 
ment : “ The signor Mertyrio was well, and on the point of 
visiting Italy, and quitting the wave-embraced island of 
fog, of beer, of moist winds, and much money, and much 
kindness, where great hearts grew. The signorina corre¬ 
sponded with him, and with him only.” 

“ You know that, and will swear to it ?” Laura exclaimed. 

Beppo thereby receiving the cue he had commenced 
beating for, swore to its truth profoundly, and straightway 
directed his statement to prove that his mistress had not 
been politically (or amorously, if the suspicion aimed at her 
in those softer regions) indiscreet or blameable in any of her 
actions. The signorina, he said, never went out from her 
abode without the companionship of her meritorious mother 
and his own most humble attendance. He, Beppo, had a 
master and a mistress, the signor Mertyrio and the signorina 
Yittoria. She saw no foreigners : though — a curious thing 1 
—he had seen her when the English language was talked in 
her neighbourhood; and she had a love for that language: 
it made her face play in smiles like an infant’s after it has 
had suck and is full;—the sort of look jmu perceive when 
one is dreaming and hears music. She did not speak to 
foreigners. She did not care to go to foreign cities, but 
loved Milan, and lived in it free and happy as an earwig in 
a ripe apricot. The circumvallation of Milan gave her 
elbow-room enough, owing to the absence of forts all round 
• —“which knock one’s funny-bone in Yerona, signora.” 
Beppo presented a pure smile upon a simple bow for accept- 


THE PLOT OP THE SIGNOR ANTONIO. 


113 


ance. “ The air of Milan,” he went on, with less confi¬ 
dence under Laura’s steady gaze, and therefore more forcing 
of his candour—“the sweet air of Milan gave her a deep 
chestful, so that she could hold her note as long as five 
lengths of a fiddle-bow:—by the body of Sant’ Ambrogio, 
it was true! ” Beppo stretched out his arm, and chopped 
his hand edgeways five testificatory times on the shoulder- 
ridge. “ Ay, a hawk might fly from St. Luke’s head (on 
the Duomo) to the stone on San Primo over Como, while 
the signorina held on her note ! You listened, you gasped 
—you thought of a poet in his dungeon, and suddenly, 
behold, his chains are struck off!—you thouglit of a gold 
shelled tortoise making his pilgrimage to a beatific shrine! 
—you thought—you knew not what you thought ! ” 

Here Beppo sank into a short silence of ecstasy, and 
wakening from it, as with an ardent liveliness : “ The sig¬ 
nora has heard her sing ? How to describe it 1 To-morrow 
night will be a feast for Milan.” 

“ You think that the dilettanti of Milan will have a 
delight to-morrow night ? ” said Laura ; but seeing that 
the man’s keen ear had caught note of the ironic reptile 
under the flower, and unwilling to lose further time, she inter¬ 
dicted his reply. 

“ Beppo, my good friend, you are a complete Italian—you 
waste your cleverness. You will gratify me by remembering 
that I am your countrywoman. I have already done you a 
similar favour by allowing you to air your utmost ingenuity. 
The reflection that it has been to no purpose will neither 
scare you nor instruct you. Of that I am quite assured. I 
speak solely to suit the present occasion. hTow, don’t seek 
to elude me. If you are a snake with friends as well as 
enemies, you are nothing but a snake. I ask you—you 
are not compelled to answer, but I forbid you to lie—has 
your mistress seen, or conversed and had correspondence 
with any one receiving the Tedeschi’s gold, man or woman ? 
Can any one, man or woman, call her a traitress ? ” 

“Hot twice!” thundered Beppo, with a furrowed red 
forehead. 

There was a noble look about the fellow as he stood 
with stiff legs in a posture, frowning—theatrical, but noble 
also; partly the look of a Figaro defending his honour in 

1 


114 


VITTORIA. 


extremity, yet mucli like a statue of a Frencli Marshal of the 
Empire, 

“ That will do,” said Laura, rising. She was about to 
leave him, when the Duchess of Draatli’s chasseur ^ was 
ushered in, bearing a missive from Amalia, her friend. 
She opened it and read:— 

“ Best beloved, —Am I soon to he reminded bitterly that 
there is a river of steel between my heart and me ? 

“ Fail not in coming to-night. Your new Bulbul is in 
danger. The silly thing must have been reading Roman 
history. Say not no! It intoxicates you all. I watch over 
her for my Laura’s sake: a thousand kisses I shower on you, 
dark delicious soul that you are ! Are you not my pine- 
grove leading to the evening star ? Come, that we may con¬ 
sult how to spirit her away during her season of peril. 
Gulfs do not close over little female madcaps, my Laura; so 
w^e must not let her take the leap. Enter the salle when you 
arrive : pass down it once and return upon your steps ; then 
to my boudoir. My maid Aennchen will conduct you. 
Addio. Tell this messenger that you come. Laura mine, 1 
am for ever thy 

“ Amalia.” 

Laura signalled to the chasseur that her answer was 
affirmative. As he was retiring, his black-plumed hat 
struck against Beppo, who thrust him aside and gave the hat 
a dexterous kick, all the while keeping a decorous front 
toward the signora. She stood meditating. The enraged 
chasseur mumbled a word or two for Beppo’s ear, in execra¬ 
ble Italian, and went. Beppo then commenced bowing half 
toward the doorway, and tried to shoot through, out of sight 
and away, in a final droop of excessive servility, but the 
signora stopped him, telling him to consider himself her 
servant until the morning: at which he manifested a sur¬ 
prising readiness, indicative of nothing short of personal 
devotion, and remained for two minutes after she had quitted 
the room. So much time having elapsed, he ran bounding 
down the stairs and found the hall-door locked, and that he 
was a prisoner during the signora’s pleasure. The discovery 
that he was mastered by superior cunning, instead of discon¬ 
certing, quieted him wonderfully; so he put by the resources 


THE PLOT OP THE SIGNOR ANTONIO. 


115 


of his ingenuity for the next opportunity, and returned 
stealthily to his starting-point, where the signora found 
him awaiting her with composure. The man was in mortal 
terror lest he might be held guilty of a trust betrayed, in 
leaving his mistress for an hour, even in obedience to her 
command, at this crisis : but it was not in his nature to 
state the case openly to the signora, whom he knew to be his 
mistress’s friend, or to think of practising other than shrewd 
evasion to accomplish his duty and satisfy his conscience. 

Laura said, without smiling, “ The street-door opens with 
a key,” and she placed the key in his hand, also her fan to 
carry. Once out of the house, she was sure that he would 
not forsake his immediate charge of the fan: she walked on, 
heavily veiled, confident of his following. The Duchess of 
Graiitli’s house neighboured the Corso Francesco; numerous 
carriages were disburdening their freights of fair guests, and 
now and then an Austrian officer in full uniform ran up the 
steps, glittering under the lamps. “ I go in among them,” 
thought Laura. It rejoiced her that she had come on foot. 
Foi'getting Beppo, and her black fan, as no Italian woman 
would have done but she who paced in an acute quivering of 
the anguish of hopeless remembram s and hopeless thirst of 
vengeance, she suffered herself to be conducted in the midst 
of the guests, and shuddered like one who has taken a fever- 
chill as she fulfilled the duchess’s directions ; she passed 
down the length of the saloon, through a light of visages 
that were not human to her sensations. 

Meantime Beppo, oppressed by his custody of the fan, and 
expecting that most serviceable lady’s instrument to be sent 
for at any minute, stood among a strange body of semi- 
feudal retainers below, where he was soon singled out by the 
duchess’s chasseur, a Styrian, who, masking his fury under 
jest, in the South-German manner, endeavoured to lead him 
up to an altercation. But Beppo was much too supple to be 
entrapped. He apologized for any possible offences that he 
might have committed, assuring the chasseur that he con¬ 
sidered one hat as good as another, and some hats better 
than others: in proof of extreme cordiality, he accepted the 
task of repeating the chasseur’s name, which was ‘Jacob 
Baumwalder Feckelwitz,’ a tolerable mouthful for an Italian; 
and it was with remarkable delicacy that Beppo contrived to 
take upon himself the whole ridicule of his vile pronuncia- 


116 


VITTOEIA. 


tion of the unwieldy name. Jacob Banmwalder Feckelwitz 
offered him beer to refresh him after the effort. While 
Beppo was drinking, he seized the fan. “ Good ; good ; a 
thousand thanks,” said Beppo, relinquishing it; “ convey it 
aloft, I beseech you.” He displayed such alacrity and light¬ 
ness of limb at getting rid of it, that Jacob thrust it through 
the buttons of his shirt-front, returning it to his possession 
by that aperture. Beppo’s head sank. A handful of black 
lace and cedar-wood chained him to the spot! He entreated 
the men in livery to take the fan up-stairs and deliver it to 
the signora Laura Piaveni; but they; being advised by Jacob, 
refused. “ Go yourself,” said Jacob, laughing, and little pre¬ 
pared to see the victim, on whom he thought that for another 
hour at least he had got his great paw firmly, take him at 
his word. Beppo sprang into the hall and up the stairs. 

' The duchess’s maid, ivory-faced Aennchen, was flying past 
him. She saw a very taking dark countenance making eyes 
at her, leaned her ear shyly, and pretending to understand 
all that was said by the rapid foreign tongue, acted from 
the suggestion of the sole thing which she did understand. 
Beppo had mentioned the name of the signora Piaveni. 
“ This way,” she indicated with her finger, supposing that 
of course he wanted to see the signora very urgently. Beppo 
tried hard to get her to carry the fan; but she lifted her 
fingers in a perfeco Susannah horror of it, though still bid¬ 
ding him to follow. Naturally she did not go fast through 
the dark passages, where the game of the fan was once more 
played out, and with accompaniments. The accompaniments 
she objected to no further than a fish is agitated in escaping 
from the hook ; but “ Nein, iiein!” in her own language, and 
“ No, no !” in his, burst from her lips whenever he attempted 
to transfer the fan to her keeping. “ These white women are 
most wonderful!” thought Beppo, ready to stagger between 
perplexity and impatience. “ There ; in there !” said Aenn¬ 
chen, pointing to a light that came through the folds of a 
curtain. Bej^po kissed her fingers as they tugged unre- 
luctantly in his clutch, and knew by a little pause that the 
case was hopeful for higher privileges. What to do ? He 
had not an instant to spare; yet he dared not offend a 
woman’s vanity. He gave an ecstatic pressure of her hand 
upon his breast-bone, to let her be sure she was adored, 
albeit not embraced. After this act of prudence went 


TnE PLOT OP THE SIGNOE ANTONIO. 


117 


toward the curtain, while the fair Austrian soubrette flew on 
her previous errand. 

It was enough that Beppo found himself in a dark ante¬ 
chamber for him to be instantly scrupulous in his footing 
and breathing. As he touched the curtain, a door opened on 
the other side of the interior, and a tender gabble of fresh 
feminine voices broke the stillness and ran on like a brook 
coming from leaf)s to a level, and again leaping and making 
’ noise of joy. The duchess of Graatli had clasped the signora 
Laura’s two hands and drawn her to an ottoman, and between 
kissings and warmer claspings, was questioning of the little 
ones, Giacomo and her god-daughter Amalia. 

“ When, when did I see you last ?” she exclaimed. “ Oh ! 
not since we met that morning to lay our immortelles upon 
his tomb. My soul’s sister! kiss me, remembering it. I 
saw you in the gateway—it seemed to me, as in a vision, 
that we had both had one warning to come for him, and 
knock, and the door would be opened, and our beloved would* 
come forth! That was many days back. It is to me like 
a day locked up for ever in a casket of pearl. Was it not 
an unstained morning, my own! If I weep, it is with 
pleasure. But,” she added with precipitation, “ weeping of 
any kind will not do for these eyelids of mine.” And draw¬ 
ing forth a tiny gold-framed pocket-mirror she perceived 
convincingly that it would not do. 

“ They will think it is for the absence of my husband,” 
she said, as only a woman can say it who deplores nothing 
so little as that. 

“ When does he return from Vienna ?” Laura inquired in 
the fallen voice of her thoughtfulness. 

“ I receive two couriers a week; I know not any more, 
my Laura. I believe he is pushing some connubial com¬ 
plaint against me at the Court. We have been married 
seventeen months. I submitted to the marriage because I 
could get no proper freedom without, and now I am expected 
to abstain from the very thing I sacrificed myself to get! 
Can he hear that in Vienna ?” She snapped her fingers. 

“ If not, let him come and behold it in Milan. Besides, he 
is harmless. The Archduchess is all ears for the very man 
of whom he is jealous. This is my reply : You told me to 
marry : I obeyed. My heart’s in the earth, and I must have 
distractions. My present distraction is L)e Pyrmont, a good 


118 


VITTORIA. 


Catholic and a good Austrian soldier, thongh a Frenchman. 
I grieve to say—it’s horrible—that it sometimes tickles me 
when I reflect that De Pyrmont is keen with the sword. 
But remember, Laura, it was not until after our marriage 
my husband told me he could have saved Giacomo by the 
lifting of a finger. Away with the man !—if it amuses me 
to punish him, I do so.” 

The duchess kissed Laura’s cheek, and continued:— 

“ l^ow to the point where w^e stand enemies! I am for 
Austria, you are for Italy. Good. But I am always for 
Laura. So, there’s a river between us and a bridge across 
it. My darling, do you know that we are much too strong 
for you, if you mean anything serious to-morrow night ?” 

“ Are you ?” Laura said calmly. 

“ I know, you see, that something is meant to happen 
to-morrow night.” 

Laura said, “ Do you ?” 

‘ “ We have positive evidence of it. More than that: Your 

Vittoria—but do you care to have her warned ? She will 
certainly find herself in a pitfall if she insists on carrying 
out her design. Tell me, do you care to have her warned 
and shielded ? A year of fortress-life is not agreeable, is 
not beneficial for the voice. Speak, my Laura.” 

Laura looked up in the face of her friend mildly with her 
large dark eyes, replying, “ Do you think of sending Major 
de Pyrmont to her to warn her ?” 

“ Are you not wicked ?” cried the duchess, feeling that 
she blushed, and that Laura had thrown her off the straight 
road of her interrogation. “ But, play cards with open hands, 
my darling, to-night. Look:—She is in danger. I know 
it; so do you. She will be imprisoned perhaps before she 
steps on the boards—who knows ? Now, I—are not my 
very dreams all sworn in a regiment to serve my Laura ?— 
I have a scheme. Truth, it is hardly mine. It belongs to 
the Greek, the signor Antonio-Pericles Agriolopoulos. It 
is simply”—the duchess dropped her voice out of Beppo’s 
hearing—“ a scheme to rescue her: speed her away to my 
chateau near Meran in Tyrol.” ‘ Tyrol ’ was heard by Beppo. 
In his frenzy at the loss of the context he indulged in a 
yawn, and a grimace, and a dance of disgust all in one ; 
which lost him the next sentence likewise. “ There wo 
purpose keeping her till all is quiet and her revolutionary 


THE PLOT OP THE SIGNOR ANTONIO. 


119 


fever has passed. Have you heard of this signor Antonio ? 
He could buy up the kingdom of Greece, all Tyrol, half 
Lombardy. The man has a passion for your Vittoria; for 
her voice solely, I believe. He is considered, no doubt truly, 
a great connoisseur. He could have a passion for nothing 
else, or alas !” (the duchess shook her head with doleful 
drollery) “ would he insist on written securities and mort¬ 
gages of my private property when he lends me money ? 
How different the world is from the romances, my Laura ! 
But for He Pyrmont, I might fancy my smile was really 
incapable of ransoming an empire; I mean an emperor. 
Speak; the man is waiting to come ; shall I summon him 

Laura gave an acquiescent nod. 

By this time Beppo had taken root to the floor. “ I am 
in the best place after all,” he said, thinking of the duties 
of his service. He was perfectly well acquainted with the 
features of the signor Antonio. He knew that Luigi was the 
signor Antonio’s spy upon Vittoria, and that no personal 
harm was intended toward his mistress ; but Beppo’s heart 
was in the revolt of which Vittoria was to give the signal; 
so, without a touch of animosity, determined to thwart him, 
Beppo waited to hear the signor Antonio’s scheme. 

The Greek was introduced by Aennchen. She glanced at 
the signora’s lap, and seeing her still without her fan, her 
eye shot slyly up with her shining temple, inspecting the 
narrow opening in the curtain furtively. A short hush of 
preluding ceremonies passed. 

Presently Beppo heard them speaking; he was aghast 
to find that he had no comprehension of what they were 
uttering. “ Oh, accursed French dialect!” he groaned; 
discovering the talk to be in that tongue. The signor 
Antonio warmed rapidly from the frigid politeness of his 
introductory manner. A consummate acquaintance with 
French was required to understand him. He held out the 
fingers of one hand in regimental order, and with the others, 
which alternately screwed his moustache from its constitu¬ 
tional droop over the corners of his mouth, he touched the 
uplifted digits one by one, buzzing over them, flashing his 
white eyes, and shrugging in a way sufficient to madden 
a surreptitious listener who was aware that a wealth 
of meaning escaped him and mocked at him. At times 
the signor Antonio pitched a note compounded half of 


120 


VITTORTA. 


cursing, half of crying, it seemed: both pathetic and objur- 
gative, as if he whimpered anathemas and had inexpressible 
bitter things in his mind. But there was a remedy! He 
displayed the specific on a third finger. It was there. This 
being done (number three on the fingers), matters might 
still be well. So much his electric French and gesticula¬ 
tions plainly asserted. Beppo strained all his attention for 
names in despair at the riddle of the signs. Hames were 
pillars of light in the dark unintelligible waste. The signora 
put a question. It was replied to with the name of the 
Maestro Rocco Bicci. Following that, the signor Antonio 
accompanied his voluble delivery with pantomimic action 
which seemed to indicate the shutting of a door and an 
instantaneous galloping of horses—a flight into air, any- 
whither. He whipped the visionary steeds with enthusiastic 
glee, and appeared to be olf skyward like a mad poet, when 
the signora again put a question, and at once he struck his 
hand flat across his mouth, and sat postured to answer what 
she pleased with a glare of polite vexation. She spoke; he 
echoed her, and the duchess took up the same phrase. Beppo 
was assisted by the triangular recurrence of the words and 
their partial relationship to Italian to interpret them : “This 
night.” Then the signora questioned further. The Greek 
replied : “ Mademoiselle Irma di Karski.” 

“ La Lazzeruola,” she said. 

The signor Antonio flashed a bit of sarcastic mimicry, as 
if acquiescing in the justice of the opprobrious term from 
the high point of view: but mademoiselle might pass,—she 
was good enough for the public. 

Beppo heard and saw no more. A tug from behind re¬ 
called him to his situation. He put out his arms and 
gathered Aennchen all dark in them : and first kissing her 
so heartily as to set her trembling on the verge of a betrayal, 
before she could collect her wits he struck the fan down the 
pretty hollow of her back, between her shoulder-blades, and 
bounded away. It was not his intention to rush into the 
embrace of Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz, but that peram¬ 
bulating chasseur received him in a semi-darkness where all 
were shadows, and exclaimed, “ Aennchen !” Beppo gave 
an endearing tenderness to the few words of German known 
to him: “ GoH — schaf — donner—dummerT and slipired from 
the hold of the astonished Jacob, sheer under his arm pit. 


AT THE maestro’s DOOR. ’ 


121 


He was soon in the street, excited he knew not hj what, or 
for what object. He shuffled the names he remembered to 
have just heard—‘ Rocco Ricci,’ and ‘ la Lazzeruola.’ Why 
did the name of la Lazzeruola come in advance of la Vittoria? 
And what was the thing meant by “ this night,” which all 
three had uttered as in an agreement ?—ay! and the Tyrol I 
The Tyrol—this night—Rocco Ricci—la Lazzeruola! 

Beppo’s legs were carrying him toward the house of the 
maestro Rocco Ricci ere he had arrived at any mental 
decision upon these imminent mysteries. 


CHAPTER Xiy. 

\ AT THE maestro’s DOOR. 

The house of the maestro Rocco Ricci turned off the 
Borgo della Stella. Carlo Ammiani conducted Vittoria to 
the maestro’s door. They conversed very little on the way. 

“ You are a good swordsman ?” she asked him abruptly. 

“ I have as much skill as belongs to a perfect intimacy 
with the weapon,” he answered. 

“ Your father was a soldier. Signor Carlo. 

“ He was a General offlcer in what he believed to be the 
army of Italy. We used to fence together every day for 
two hours.” 

“I love the fathers who do that,” said Vittoria. 

After such speaking Ammiani was not capable of the 
attempt to preach peace and safety to her. He postponed it 
to the next minute and the next. 

Vittoria’s spirit was in one of those angry knots which are 
half of the intellect, half of the will, and are much under the 
domination of one or other of the passions in the ascendant. 
She was resolved to go forward; she felt justified in going 
forward; but the divine afflatus of enthusiasm buoyed her 
no longer, and she required the support of all that accuracy 
of insight and that senseless stubbornness which there might 
be in her nature. The feeling that it was she to whom it 
was given to lift the torch and plant the standard of Italy, 
had swept her as through the strings of a harp. Laura, and 



122 


VITTOEIA. 


the horrible little bronze butterfly, and the * Sei sospefta,* now 
made her duty seem dry and miserably fleshless, imaging 
itself to her as if a skeleton had been told to arise and walk: 
—say, the thing obeys, and fills a ghastly distension of 
men’s eyelids for a space, and again lies down, and men get 
their breath: but who is the rosier for it ? where is the glory 
of it? what is the good? This Milan, and Verona, Padua, 
Vicenza, Brescia, Venice, Florence, the whole Venetian, Tus¬ 
can, and Lombardic lands, down to far Sicily, and that Borne 
which always lay under the crown of a dead sunset in her 
idea—they too might rise; but she thought of them as 
skeletons likewise. Even the shadowy vision of Italy Free 
had no bloom on it, and stood fronting the blown trum¬ 
pets of resurrection Lazarus-like. 

At these moments young hearts, though full of sap and 
fire, cannot do common nursing labour for the little suckling 
sentiments and hopes, the dreams, the languors and the 
energies hanging about them for nourishment. Vittoria’s 
horizon was within five feet of her. She saw neither 
splendid earth nor ancient heaven ; nothing save a breach 
to be stepped over in defiance of foes and (what was harder 
to brave) of friends. Some wayward activity of old associa¬ 
tions set her humming a quaint English tune, by which she 
was brought to her consciousness. 

“ Dear friend,’* she said, becoming aware that there might 
be a more troubled depth in Ammiani’s absence of speech 
> than in her own. 

“Yes?” said he, quickly, as for a sentence to follow. 
None came, and he continued, “ The signora Laura is also 
your friend.” 

She rejoined coldly, “ I am not thinking of her.” 

Vittoria had tried to utter what might be a word of com¬ 
fort for him, and she found she had not a thought or an 
emotion, Here she differed from Laura, who, if the mood to 
heal a favourite’s little sore at any season came upon her, 
would shower out lively tendernesses and all cajoleries pos¬ 
sible to the tongue of woman. Yet the irritation of action 
narrowed Laura more than it did Vittoria ; fevered her and 
distracted her sympathies. Being herself a plaything at the 
time, she could easily play a part for others. Vittoria had 
not grown, probably never would grow, to be so plastic off 
tho stage. She wag stringing her hand to strike a blow aa 


AT THE maestro’s DOOR. 123 

men strike, and women when they do that cannot he quite 
feminine. 

“ How dull the streets are,” she remarked. 

“ They are, just now,” said Ammiani, thinking of them on 
the night to come convulsed with strife, and of her tossed 
j3erhaps like a weed along the torrent of bloody deluge 
waters. Her step was so firm, her face so assured, that he 
could not fancy she realized any prospect of the sort, and 
it filled him with pity and a wretched quailing. 

If I speak now I shall be talking like a coward, he said to 
himself: and he was happily too prudent to talk to her in 
that strain. So he said nothing of peace and safety. She 
was almost at liberty to believe that he approved the wisdom 
of her resolution. At the maestro’s door she thanked him 
for his escort, and begged for it further within an hour. 
“ And do bring me some chocolate.” She struck her teeth 
together champing in a pretty hunger for it. “ 1 have no 
chocolate in my pocket, and I hardly know myself.” 

What will your signor Antonio say ?” 

Vittoria fillipped her fingers. “His rule is over, and he 
is my slave : I am not his. I will not eat much ; but some 
—some I must have.” ' 

Ammiani laughed and promised to obtain it._ “ That is, 
if there’s any to be had.” 

“ Break open doors to get it for me,” she said, stamping 
with fun to inspirit him. 

Ho sooner was she standing alone, than her elbow was 
gently plucked at on the other side : a voice was sibillating: 
“ S-s-signorina.” She allowed herself to be drawn out of 
the light of the open doorway, having no suspicion and no 
fear. “ Signorina, here is chocolate.” She beheld two 
hands in cup-shape, surcharged with packets of Turin 
chocolate. 

“ Luigi, it is you ?” 

The Motterone spy screwed his eyelids to an expression of 
the shrewdest secresy. 

“ Hist! signorina. Take some. You shall have all, but 
wait:—by-and-by. Aha ! you look at my eyes as you did on 
the Motterone, because one of them takes the shoulder-view; 
but, the truth is, my father was a contrabandist, and had his 
eye in his ear when the frontier gniard sent a bullet through 
his back, cotton-bags and cutleries, and all! I inherit from 


124 


VITTOEIA. 


him, and have been wrj-eyed ever since. How does that 
bench a man’s honesty, signorina ? Hot at all. Don’t even 
suspect that you won’t appreciate Luigi by-and-by. So, 
70U won’t ask me a word, signorina, but up you go to the 
maestro :—signorina, I swear I am your faithful servant:— 
ap to the maestro, and down first. Come down first; not 
last:—first. Let the other one come down after you; and 
you come down first. Leave her behind, la Lazzeruola; and 
here,” Luigi displayed a black veil, the common head-dress 
of the Milanese women, and twisted his fingers round and 
round on his forehead to personate the horns of the veil; 

“ take it, signorina ; you know how to wear it. Luigi and 
the saints watch over you.” 

Vittoria found herself left in possession of the veil and a 
packet of chocolate. 

“ If I am watched over by the saints and Luigi!” she 
thought, and bit at the chocolate. 

When the door had closed upon her, Luigi resumed his 
station near it, warily casting his glances along the house- 
fronts, and moving his springy little legs like a heath-cock 
alert. They carried him sharp to an opposite corner of the 
street at a noise of some one running exposed to all ej^es 
right down the middle of the road, straight to the house : in ' 
which foolish person he discerned Beppo, all of whose pro¬ 
ceedings Luigi observed and commented on from the safe 
obscurity under eaves and starlight, while Beppo was in the 
light of the lamps. “Ton thunder at the door, my Beppo. 
You are a fire-balloon : you are going to burn yourself up 
with what you carry. You think you can do something, 
because you read books and frequent the talking theatres—■ 
fourteen syllables to a word. Mother of heaven ! will you 
never learn anything from natural intelligenc’ie ? There you 
are, in at the door. And now you will disturb the signorina, 
and you will do nothing but make la Lazzeruola’s ears lively. 
Bounce ! you are up the stairs. Bounce! you are on the 
landing. Thrum! you drum at the door, and they are sing¬ 
ing ; they don’t hear you. And now you’re meek as a mouse. 
That’s it—if you don’t hit the mark when you go like a 
bullet, you’re stupid as lead. And they call you a clever 
fellow ! Luigi’s day is to come. When all have paid him 
all round, they will acknowledge Luigi’s worth. You are 
honest enough, my Beppo j but you might as well be a 


AT THE MAESTEO’S DOOE. 


125 


cotintryman. Yon are the signorina’s servant, but I know 
the turnings, said the rat to the cavaliero weazel.” 

In a few minutes Beppo stepped from the house, and 
flung himself with his back against the lintel of the doorway. 

“ That looks like determination to stop on guard,” said 
Luigi. 

He knew the exact feeling expressed by it, when one has 
come violently on an errand and has done no good. 

“ A flea, my feathery lad, will set you flying again.” 

As it was imperative in Luigi’s schemes that Beppo should 
be set flying again, he slipped away stealthily, and sped fast 
into the neighbouring Corso,,where a light English closed 
carriage, drawn by a pair of the island horses, moved at a 
slow pace. Two men were on the driver’s seat, one of whom 
Luigi hailed to come down: then he laid a strip of paper on 
his knee, and after thumping on the side of his nose to get a 
notion of English-Italian, he wrote with a pencil, dancing 
upon one leg all the while for a balance:— 

“ Come, Beppo, daughter sake, now, at once, immediate, 
Beppo, signor.” 

“ That’s to the very extremity how the little signora 
Inglese would write,” said Luigi ; yet cogitating profoundly 
in a dubitative twinkle of a second as to whether it might 
not be the English habit to wind up a hasty missive with an 
expediting oath. He had heard the oath of emphasis in that 
island : but he decided to let it go as it stood. The man he 
had summoned was directed to take it straightway and 
deliver it to one who would be found at the house-door of 
the maestro Rocco Ricci : “ Thus, like a drunken sentinel,” 
said Luigi, folding his arms, crossing his legs, and leaning 
back. “ Forward, Matteo, my cherub.” 

“ All goes right ?” the coachman addressed Luigi. 

“ As honey, as butter, as a mulberry leaf with a score of 
worms on it! The wine and the bre^\d and the cream- 
cheeses are inside, my dainty one, are they ? She must not 
starve, nor must I. Are our hampers fastened outside ? 
Good. We shall be among tlie Germans in a day and a night. 
I’ve got the route, and I pronounce the name of the chateau 
very perfectly—‘ Schloss Sonnenberg.’ Do that if you can.” 

The unpractised Italian coachman declined to attempt it. 
He and Luigi compared time by their watches. In three- 


128 


vittoria. 


quarters of an hour he was to he within hail of the maestro’s 
house. Thither Luigi quietly returned. 

Beppo’s place there was vacant. 

“ That’s better than a draught of Asti,” said Luigi. 

The lighted windows of the maestro’s house, and the 
piano striking corrective notes, assured him that the special 
rehearsal was still going on ; and as he might now calculate 
on two or three minutes to spare, he threw back his coat- 
collar, lifted his head, and distended his chest, apparently to 
chime in with the singing, but simply to listen to it. For 
him, it was imperative that he should act the thing, in order 
to apprehend and appreciate it, 

A hurried footing told of the approach of one whom ho 
expected. 

“ Luigi!” 

“ Here, padrone.” 

“ You have the-chocolate ?” 

“ Signoi Antonio, 1 have deposited it in the carriage.” 

“ She is in up there ?” 

“ I beheld her entering.” 

“ Good ; that is fixed fact.” The signor Antonio drove at 
his moustache right and left. “ I give you, see, Italian 
money and German money : German money in paper ; and a 
paper written out by me to explain the value of the German 
paper-money. Silence, engine that you are, and not a man ! 
L am preventive of stupidity, I am ? Do I not know that, 
hein ? Am I in need of the acclamation of you, my friend ? 
On to the Chateau Sonnenberg;—drive on, drive on, and one 
who stops you, you drive over him : the gendarmes in white 
will peruse this paper, if there is any question, and will pass 
you and the cage, bowing; you hear ? It is a pass ; the 
military pass you when you show this paper. My good 
friend. Captain Weisspriess, on the statf of General Pierson, 
gives it, signed, and it is effectual. But you lose not the 
paper : put it away with the paper-money, quite safe. For 
yourself, this is half your pay—I give you napoleons ; ten. 
Count. And now—once at the Chateau Sonnenberg, I repeat, 
you leave her in charge of two persons, one a woman, at the 
gate, and then back—frrrrr.” 

Antonio-Pericles smacked on the flat of his hand, and 
sounded a rapid course of wheels. 

“ Back, and drop not a crumb upon the road. You hav^e 


AT THE MAESTEO’S DOOR. 


127 


your map. It is, after Roveredo, straight up the Adige, by 
Bolzano .... say ‘ Botzen.’ ” 

“ ‘ Botz,’ ” said Luigi, submissively. 

“ ‘ Botz ’—‘ Botz ’—ass ! fool! double idiot! ‘ Botzen !’ ” 
Antonio-Pericles corrected him furiously, exclaiming to the 
sovereign skies, ‘ Though I pay for brains, can I get them ! 
Ro But make a fiasco, Luigi, and not a second ten for 
you, my friend: and away, out of my sight, show yourself 
no more 1” 

Luigi humbly said that he was not the instrument of a 
fiasco. 

Half spurning him, Antonio-Pericles snarled an end both 
to his advices and his prophetic disgust of the miserable 
tools furnished unto masterly minds upon this earth. He 
paced forward and back, murmuring in French, “ Mon Dieu ! 
was there ever such a folly as in the head of this girl ? It 
is' her occasion:—Shall I be a Star ? Shall I be a Cinder ? ^ 
It is to-morrow night her moment of Birth ! No ; she pre¬ 
fers to be extinguished. For what ? For this thing she 
calls her country. It is infamous. Yes, vile little cheat! 
But, do you know Antonio-Pericles ? Not yet. I will 
nourish you, I will imprison you: I will have you tortured 
by love, by the very devil of love, by the red-hot pincers of 
love, till you scream a music, and die to melt him with your 
voice, and kick your country to the gutter, and know your 
Italy for a birthplace and a cradle of Song, and no more, 
and enough ! Bah!” 

Having thus delivered himself of the effervescence of his 
internal agitation, he turned sharply round upon Luigi, with 
a military stamp of the foot and shout of the man’s name. 

“ It is love she wants,” Antonio-Pericles resumed his 
savage soliloquy. “ She wants to be kindled on fire. Too 
much Government of brain; not sufficient Insurrection of 
heart! There it is. There it lies. But, little fool! you 
shall find people with arms and shots and cannon running 
all up and down your body, firing and crying out ‘ Victory 
for Love! ’ till you are beaten, till you gasp ‘ Love ! love! 
love ! ’ and then comes a beatific—oh ! a heaven and a hell to 
your voice,. I will pay,” the excited connoisseur pursued 
more deliberately—“ I will pay half my fortune to bring this 
about. I am fortified, for I know such a voice was sent to be 
sublime.” He exclaimed in an ecstasy: “ It opens the skies!” 


128 


VITTOEIA. 


and immediately appended: “ It is destined to suffocate the 
theatres !” 

Pausing as before a splendid vision: “ Money—let ib go 
like dust ! I have an object. Sandra Belloni—you stupid 
Vittoria Campa!—I have millions and the whole Austrian 
Government to back me, and you to be wilful, little rebel! 
I could laugh. It is only Love you want. Your voice is 
now in a marble chamber. I will put it in a palace of cedar- 
wood. This Ammiani I let visit you in the hope that he 
would touch you. Bah ! he is a patriot—not a man ! He 
cannot make you wince and pine, and be cold and be hot, 
and—Bah! I give a chance to some one else who is not a 
patriot. He has done mischief with the inflammable little 
Anna von Lenkenstein—I know it. Your proper lovers, you 
women, are the broad, the business lovers, and Weisspriess 
is your man.” 

Antonio-Pericles glanced up at the maestro’s windows. 
“ Hark ! it is her voice,” he said, and drew up his clenched 
fists with rage, as if pumping. “ Cold as ice ! Hot a flaw. 
She is a lantern with no light in it—crystal, if you like. 
Hark now at Irma, the stork-neck. Aie ! what a long way 
it is from your throat to your head, mademoiselle Irma! 
You were reared upon lemons. The split hair of your mural 
crown is not thinner than that voice of yours. It is a 
mockery to hear you; but you are good enough for the 
people, my dear, and you do work, running up and down 
that ladder of wires between your throat ‘and your head ;—■ 
you work, it is true, you puss ! sleek as a puss, bony as a 
puss, musical as a puss. But you are good enough for the 
people. Hola! ” 

This exclamation was addressed to a cavalier who was dis¬ 
mounting from his horse about fifty yards down the street, 
and who, giving the reins to a mounted servant, advanced to 
meet the signor Antonio. 

‘ It is you, Herr Captain von Weisspriess! ” 

“ When he makes an appointment you see him, as a rule, 
my dear Pericles,” returned the captain. 

“ You are out of uniform—good. We will go up. Bemem- 
ber, you are a connoisseur, from Bonn—from Berlin—from 
Leipsic: not of the K.K. army! Abjure it, or you make no 
way with this mad thing. You shall see her and hear her, 
and judge if she is worth your visit to Schloss Sonnenberg 


AT THE maestro’s DOOR. 


129 


and a sliort siege. Good: we go aloft. You bow to the 
maestro respectfully twice, as in duty; then a third time, as 
from a whisper of your soul. Vanitas, vanitatis! You 
speak of the ut de poitrine. You remark : ‘ Albrechtsberger 

has said-and you slap your head and stop. They think, 

‘ He is polite, and will not quote a German authority to us : ’ 
and they think, ‘ He will not continue his quotation; in 
truth, he scornfully considers it superfluous to talk of coun¬ 
terpoint to us poor Italians.’ Your Christian name is 
Johann?—you are Herr Johannes. Look at her well. I 
shall not expose you longer than ten minutes to their obser¬ 
vation. Frown meditative; the elbow propped and two 
fingers in the left cheek; and walk into the room with a 
stoop : touch a note of the piano, leaning your ear to it as in 
detection of five-fifteenths of a shade of discord. Frown in 
trouble as of a tooth. So, when you smile, it is immense 
praise to them, and easy for you.” 

The names of the signor Antonio-Pericles and Herr 
Johannes were taken up to the maestro. 

Tormented with curiosity, Luigi saw them enter the house. 
The face and the martial or sanguinary reputation of Captain 
Weisspriess were not unknown to him. “What has he to 
do with this affair ? ” thought Luigi, and sauntered down to 
the captain’s servant, who accepted a cigar from him, but 
was rendered incorruptible by ignorance of his language. He 
observed that the horses were fresh, and were furnished 
with saddle-bags as for an expedition. What expedition ? 
To serve as escort to the carriage ?—a nonsensical idea. But 
the discovery that an idea is nonsensical is not a satisfactory 
solution of a difficulty. Luigi squatted on his haunches 
beside the doorstep, a little under one of the lower windows 
of K-occo Ricci’s house. Earlier than he expected, the cap¬ 
tain and signor Antonio came out, and as soon as the door 
had closed behind them, the captain exclaimed, “ I give you 
my hand on it, my brave Pericles. You have done me many 
services, but this is finest of all. She’s superb. She’s a 
nice little wild woman to tame. I shall go to the Sonnen- 
berg immediately. I have only to tell General Pierson that 
his nephew is to be prevented from playing the fool, and I 
get leave at once, if there’s no active work.” 

“His nephew, Lieutenant Pierson, or Pole—hein ?” inter* 
posed the Greek. 

E 



130 


VITTOEIA. 


“That’s the man. He’s on the Marshal’s staff. F 
engaged to the Countess Lena von Lenkenstein. She has ' 
enough, my Pericles.” 

“The Countess Anna, you say?” The Greek stretc 
forward his ear, and was never so near getting it vigorou' 
cuffed. 

“ Deafness is an unpardonable offence, my dear Pericles. 

Antonio-Pericles sniffed, and assented, “ It is the stupidil ' 
of the ear.” 

“ I said, the Countess Lena.” 

“Von Lenkenstein; but I choose to be further deaf.” 

“ To the devil, sir. Do you pretend to be angry ?” cried 
Weisspriess. 

“ The devil, sir, with your recommendation, is too black 
for me to visit him,” Antonio-Pericles rejoined. 

“ By heaven, Pericles, for less than what you allow yourself 
to say, I’ve sent men to him howling! ” 

They faced one another, pulling at their moustachios. 
Weisspriess laughed. 

“ You’re not a fighting man, Pericles.” 

The Greek nodded affably. “ One is in my way, I have 
him put out of my way. It is easiest.” 

“ Ah ! easiest, is it ?” Captain Weisspriess ‘ frowned medi¬ 
tative ’ over this remarkable statement of a system. “ Well, 
it certainly saves trouble. Besides, my good Pericles, none 
but an ass would quarrel with you. I was observing that 
General Pierson wants his nephew to marry the Countess 
Lena immediately; and if, as you tell me, this girl Belloni, 
W'ho is called la Vittoria—the precious little woman !—has 
such power over him, it’s quite as well, from the General’s 
point of view, that she should be out of the way at Sonnen- 
berg. I have my footing at the Duchess of Graiitli’s. I 
believe she hopes tliat I shall some day challenge and kill her 
husband; and as I am supposed to have saved Major de 
Pyrmont’s life, I am also an object of present gratitude. Do 
you imagine that your little brown-eyed Belloni scented one 
of her enemies in me ?” 

“ I know nothing of imagination,” the signor Antonio 
observed frigidly. 

“ Till we meet!” Captain Weisspriess kissed his fingers, 
half as up toward the windows, and half to the Greek. 
“ Save me from having to teach love to your Irma!” 


AT THE MAESTEO’S DOOB. 


131 


3 ran to join his servant. 

froT heard much of the conversation, as well as the 

,sentence. 

It shall be to la Irma if it is to anybody,” Luigi 
^ gitered. 

Let Weisspriess—he will not awake love in her—let him 
^ idle hate, it will do,” said the signor Antonio. “ She has 

on him, and if he meets her on the route to Meran, she will 
nink it her fascination.” 

Looking at his watch and at the lighted windows, he 
repeated his special injunctions to Luigi. “It is near the 
time. I go to sleep. I am getting old: I grow nervous. 
Ten—twenty in addition, you shall have, if all is done right. 
Your weekly pay runs on. Twenty—^you shall have thirty! 
Thirty napoleons additional !” 

Ten fingers were flashed thrice. 

Luigi gave a jump. “ Padrone, they are mine.” 

“ Animal, that shake your belly-bag and brain-box, stand !” 
cried the Greek, who desired to see Luigi standing firm that 
he might inspire himself with confidence in his integrity. 
When Luigi’s posture had satisfied him, he turned and went 
off at great strides. 

“ He does pay,” Luigi reflected, seeing that immense virtue 
in his patron. “Yes, he pays ; but what is he about? It 
is this question for me—‘ Do I serve my hand ? or. Do I serve 
my heart ?’ My hand takes the money, and it is not German 
money. My heart gives the affection, and the signorina has 
my heart. She reached me that cigaretti! on the Motterone 
like the Madonna : it is never to be forgotten ! I serve my 
heart! How, Beppo, you may come; come quick for her. 
I see the carriage, and there are three stout fellows in it who 
could trip and muzzle you at a signal from me before you 
could count the letters of your father’s baptismal name. Oh! 
but if the signorina disobeys me and comes out last!—the 
signor Antonio will ask the maestro, who will say, ‘ Yes, la 
Vittoria was here with me last of the two;’ and I lose my 
ten, my twenty, my thirty napoleons.” 

Luigi’s chest expanded largely with a melancholy draught 
of air. 

The carriage meantime had become visible at the head of 
the street, where it remained within hearing of a whistle. 
One of the Milanese hired vehicles drove up to the maestro’s 

K 2 


132 


VITTORIA. 


door sliortly after, and Lnigi cursed it. His worst fears for 
the future of the thirty napoleons were confirmed; the door 
opened and the maestro Rocco Ricci, bare-headed and in 
his black-silk dressing-gown, led out Irma di Karski, by 
some called rival to la Yittoria; a tall Slavic damsel, whose 
laughter was not soft and smooth, whose cheeks were bright, 
and whose eyes were deep in the head and dull. But she 
had vivacity both of lips and shoulders. The shoulders 
were bony; the lips were sharp and red, like winter-berries 
in the morning-rime. Freshness was not absent from her 
aspect. The critical objection was that it seemed a plastered 
freshness and not true bloom; or rather it was a savage and 
a hard, not a sweet freshness. Hence perhaps the name 
which distinguished her—la Lazzeruola (crab-apple). It was 
a freshness that did not invite the bite; sour to Italian taste. 

She was appai ently in vast delight. “ There will be a perfect 
inundation to-morrow night from Prague and Vienna to see 
me even in so miserable a part as Michiella,” she said. “Here 
I am supposed to be a beginner; I am no debutante 
there.” 

“ I can believe it, I can believe it,” responded Rocco, bowing 
for her speedy departure. 

“You are not satisfied with my singing of Michiella’s 
score! How, tell me, kind, good, harsh old master! you 
think that Miss Yittoria would sing it better. So do I. 
And I can sing another part better. You do not know my 
capacities.” 

“ I am sure there is nothing you would not attempt,” 
said Rocco, bowing resignedly. 

“ There never was question of my courage.” 

“ Yes, but courage, courage! away with your courage!” 
Rocco was spurred by his personal grievances against her in 
a manner to make him forget his desire to be rid of her. 
“Your courage sets you flying at once at every floritura and 
bravura passage, to subdue, not to learn: not to accomplish, 
but to conquer it. And the ability, let me say, is not in 
proportion to the courage, which is probably too great to be 
easily equalled: but you have the opportunity to make your 
part celebrated to-morrow night, if, as you tell me, the 
house is to be packed with Viennese, and, signorina, you let 
your hair down.” 

The hair of Irma di Karski was of singular beauty, and 


AT THE maestro’s DOOR. 133 

SO dear to her that the allusion to the triumphant feature of 
her person passed off Rocco’s irony in sugar. 

“ Addio ! I shall astonish you before many hours have 
gone by,” she said; and this time they bowed together, and 
the maestro tripped back hurriedly, and shut his door. 

Luigi’s astonishment eclipsed his chagrin when he beheld 
tho lady step from her place, bidding the driver move away 
as if he carried a freight, and indicating a position for him 
at the end of the street, with an imperative sway and deflec¬ 
tion of her hand. Luigi heard the clear thin sound of a key 
dropped to her from one of the upper windows. She was 
quick to seize it; the door opened stealthily to her, and she 
passed out of sight without casting a look behind. “ That’s 
a woman going to discover a secret, if she can,” remarked 
the observer; meaning that he considered the sex bad 
Generals, save when they have occasion to preserve them¬ 
selves secret; then they look behind them carefully enough. 
The situation was one of stringent torment to a professional 
and natural spy. Luigi lost count of minutes in his irritation 
at the mystery, which he took as a personal offence. Some 
suspicion or wariness existed in the lighted room, for the 
maestro threw up a window, and inspected the street to 
right and left. Apparently satisfied he withdrew his head, 
and the window was closed. 

In a little while Vittoria’s voice rose audible out of the 
stillness, though she restrained its volume. 

Its effect upon Luigi was to make him protest to her, 
whimpering with pathos as if she heard and must bo 
melted: “ Signorina! signorina, most dear! for charity’s 
sake ! I am one of you; I am a patriot. Every man to his 
trade, but my heart is all with you.” And so on, louder by- 
fits, in a running murmur, like one having his conscience 
ransacked, from which he was diverted by a side-thought 
of Irma di Karski, la Lazzeruola, listening, taking poison 
in at her ears; for Luigi had no hesitation in ascribing her 
behaviour to jealousy. “Does not that note drive through 
your bosom, excellent lady ? I can fancy the tremble going 
all down your legs. You are poisoned with honey. How 
you hate it! If you only had a dagger!” 

Vittoria sang but for a short space. Simultaneously with 
the cessation of her song Ammiani reached the door, but had 
scarcely taken his stand there when, catching sight of Luigi, he 


134 


vittorta. 


crossed the street, and recognizing him, questioned him sternly 
as to his business opposite the maestro’s house. Luigi pointed 
to a female figure emerging. “See! take her home,” he said. 
Ammiani released him and crossed back hurriedly, when, 
smiting his forehead, Luigi cried in despair, “ Thirty napo¬ 
leons and my professional reputation lost 1” He blew a 
whistle; the carriage dashed down from the head of the 
street. While Ammiani w^as following the swiftly-stepping 
figure in wonderment (knowing it could not be Vittoria, yet 
supposing it must be, without any clear aim of his wdts), 
the cari’iage drew up a little in advance of her; three men 
—men of bulk and sinew—jumped from it; one threw him¬ 
self upon Ammiani, the others grasped the affrighted lady, 
tightening a veil over her face, and the carriage-door shut 
sharp on her. Ammiani’s assailant then fell away: Luigi 
flung himself on the box and shouted, “ The signorina is 
behind you 1” And Ammiani beheld Vittoria standing in 
alarm, too joj^ful to know that it was she. In the spasm of 
joy he kissed her hands. Before they could intercommu¬ 
nicate intelligibly the carriage was out of their sight, going 
at a gallop along the eastern strada of the circumvallation 
of the city. 


CHAPTER XY 

AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT 

Ammiani hurried Vittoria out of the street to make safety 
sure. “ Home,” she said, ashamed of her excitement, and 
not daring to speak more words, lest the heart in her throat 
should betray itself. He saw what the fright had done for 
her. Perhaps also he guessed that she was trying to conceal 
her fancied cowardice from him. “ I have kissed her hands,” 
he thought, and the memory of it was a song of tenderness 
in his blood by the way. 

Vittoria’s dwelling-place was near theDuomo, in a narrow 
thoroughfare leading from the Duomo to the Piazza of La 
Scala, where a confectioner of local fame conferred upon the 
happier members of the population most piquant bocconi 
and tartlets, and oifered by placard to give an emotion to 



AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT, 


135 


the nobility, the literati, and the epicures of Milan, and to 
all foreigners, if the aforesaid would adventure upon a trial 
of his art. Meanwhile he let lodgings. It was in the house 
of this famous confectioner Zotti that Vittoria and her 
mother had lived after leaving England for Italy. As 
Vittoria came under the fretted shadow of the cathedral, 
she perceived her mother standing with Zotti at the house- 
door, though the night was far advanced. She laughed, 
and walked less hurriedly. Ammiani now asked her if she 
had been alarmed. “ hTot alarmed ” she said, “but a little 
more nervous than I thought I should be.” 

He was spared from putting any further question by her 
telling him that Luigi, the Motterone spy, had in all pro¬ 
bability done her a service in turning one or other of the 
machinations of the signor Antonio. “ My madman,” she 
called this latter. “ He has got his Irma instead of me. 
We shall have to supply her place to-morrow; she is tra¬ 
velling rapidly, and on my behalf ! I think, signor Carlo, 
you would do well by going to the maestro when you leave 
me, and telling him that Irma has been caught into the 
skies. Say, ‘Jealous that earth should possess such over¬ 
powering loveliness,* or ‘ Attracted in spite of themselves by 
that combination of genius and beauty which is found united 
nowhere but in Irma, the spirits of heaven determined to 
rob earth of her Lazzeruola.’ Only tell it to him seriously, 
for my dear Rocco will have to work with one of the singers 
all day, and I ought to be at hand by them to help her, if I 
dared stir out. What do you think ?” 

Ammiani pronounced his opinion that it would be perilous 
for her to go abroad. 

“ I shall in truth, I fear, have a difficulty in getting to 
La Scala unseen,” she said; “ except that we are cunning 
people in our house. We not only practise singing and 
invent wonderful confectionery, but we do conjuring tricks. 
We profess to be able to deceive anybody whom we please ” 

“ Do the dupes enlist in a regiment ?” said Ammiani, 
with an intonation that professed his readiness to serve as 
a recruit. His humour striking with hers, they smiled 
together in the bright fashion of young people who can lose 
themselves in a ray of fancy at any season. 

Vittoria heard her mother’s wailful voice. “ Twenty gnats 
in one,” she said. 


136 


VITTOEIA. 


Ammiani whispered quickly to know whether she had 
decided for the morrow. She nodded, and ran up to her 
mother, who cried— 

“ At this hour ! And Beppo has been here after yon, and 
he told me I wrote for him, in Italian, when not a word can 
I put to paper: I wouldn’t!—and you are threatened by 
dreadful dangers, he declares. His behaviour was mad; 
they are all mad over in this country, I believe. I have put 
the last stitch to your dress. There is a letter or two 
upstairs for you. Always letters !” 

“ My dear good Zotti,” Vittoria turned to the artist in 
condiments, “ you must insist upon my mother going to bed 
at her proper time when I am out.” 

“ Signorina,” rejoined Zotti, a fat little round-headed man, 
with vivacious starting brown eyes, “ I have only to tell her 
to do a thing—I pull a dog by the collar; be it said with 
reverence.” 

“ However, I am very glad to see you both such good 
friends.” 

“ Yes^ signorina, we are good friends till we quarrel again. 
I regret to observe to you that the respectable lady is in¬ 
curably suspicious. Of me—Zotti! Mother of heaven!” 

“ It is you that are suspicious of me, sir,” retorted madame. 
“ Of me, of all persons! It’s ‘ tell me this, tell me that,* 
all day with you; and because I can’t answer, you are angry.’* 

“ Behold ! the signora speaks English; we have quarrelled 
again,” said Zotti. 

“ My mother thinks him a perfect web of plots,” Vittoria 
explained the case between them, laughing, to Ammiani; 
“ and Zotti is persuaded that she is an inveterate schemer. 
They are both entirely innocent, only they are both exces¬ 
sively timid. Out of that it grows.” 

The pair dramatized her outline on the instant: 

“ ‘ Did I not see him speak to an English lady, and he will 
not tell me a word about it, though she’s my own country¬ 
woman ” 

“ ‘ Is it not true that she received two letters this after¬ 
noon, and still does she pretend to be ignorant of what is 
going on t 

“ Happily,” said Vittoria, “ my mother is not a widow, 
or these quarrels might some day end in a fearful recon¬ 
ciliation.” 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT. 


137 


“My child,” her mother whimpered, “you know what 
these autumn nights are in this country; as sure as you live, 
Emilia, you will catch cold, and then you’re like a shop with 
shutters up for the dead.” 

At the same time Zotti whispered: “ Signorina, I have 
kept the minestra hot for your supper; come in, come in. 
And, little things, little dainty hits !—do you live in Zotti’s 
house for nothing ? Sweetest delicacies that make the 
tongue run a stream!—just notions of a taste—the palate 
smacks and forgets; the soul seizes and remembers !” 

“ Oh, such seductions !” Vittoria exclaimed. 

“ It is,” Zotti pursued his idea, with fingers picturesquely 
twirling in a spider-like distension; “ it is like the damned, 
and they have but a crumb of a chance of Paradise, and 
down swoops St. Peter and has them in the gates fast! 
You are worthy of all that a man can do for you, signorina. 
Let him study, let him work, let him invent,—you are worthy 
of all.” 

“I hope 1 am not too hungry to discriminate! Zotti; I 
see Monte Rosa.” 

“ Signorina, you are pleased to say so when you are 
famishing. It is because—” the enthusiastic confectioner 
looked deep and oblique, as one who combined a remarkable 
subtlety of insight with profound reflection ; “ it is because 
the lighter you get the higher you mount; up like an eagle 
of the peaks ! But we’ll give that hungry fellow a fall. A 
dish of hot minestra shoots him dead. Then, a tart of pis¬ 
tachios and chocolate and cream—and my head to him who 
shall reveal to me the flavouring!” 

“When I wake in the morning, I shall have lived a month 
or two in Arabia, Zotti. Tell me no more; I will come in,” 
said Vittoria. ' 

“ Then, signorina, a little crisp filbert-biscuit—a composi¬ 
tion ! You crack it, and a surprise I And then, and then 
my dish ; Zotti’s dish, that is not yet christened. Signorina, 
let Italy rise firstthe great inventor of the dish winked 
and nodded temperately. “ Let her rise. A battle or a 
treaty will do. I have two or three original conceptions, 
compositions, that only wait for some brilliant feat of arms, 
or a diplomatic triumph, and I send them forth baptized.” 

Vittoria threw large eyes upon Ammiani, and set the 
nnderlids humorously quivering. She kissed her fingers: 


138 


VITTORIA. 


“ Addio; a rivederla.” He bowed formally : lie was startled 
to find the golden thread of their companionship cut with 
such cruel abruptness. But it was cut; the door had closed 
on her. The moment it had closed she passed into his 
imagination. By what charm had she allayed the fever of 
his anxiety ? Her naturalness had perforce given him assur¬ 
ance that peace must surround one in whom it shone so 
steadily, and smiling at the thought of Zotti’s repast and 
her twinkle of subdued humour, he walked away comforted; 
which, for a lover in the season of peril means exalted, as in 
a sudden conflagration of the dry stock of his intelligence. 
“ She must have some great faith in her heart,” he thought, 
no longer attributing his exclusion from it to a lover’s 
rivalry, which will show that more than imagination was on 
fire within him. Bor when the soul of a youth can be 
heated above common heat, the vices of passion shrivel up 
and aid the purer flame. It was well for Ammiani that he 
did perceive (dimly though it was perceived) the force of 
idealistic inspiration by which Vittoria was supported. He 
saw it at this one moment, and it struck a light to light him 
in many subsequent perplexities ; it was something he had 
never seen before. He had read Tuscan poetry to her in old 
Agostino’s rooms ; he had spoken of secret preparations for 
the revolt; he had declaimed upon Italy,—the poetry was 
good though the declamation may have been bad,—but she 
had always been singularly irresponsive, with a practical 
turn for ciphers. A quick reckoning, a sharp display of 
figures in Italy’s cause, kindled her cheeks and took her 
breath. Ammiani now understood that there lay an un¬ 
spoken depth in her, distinct from her visible nature. 

He had first an interview with Eocco Eicci, whom he 
prepared to replace Irma. 

His way was then to the office of his Journal, where he 
expected to be greeted by two members of the Polizia, who 
would desire him to march before the central bureau, and 
exhibit proofs of articles and the items of news for inspection, 
for correction haply, and possibly for approval. There is a 
partial delight in the contemplated submission to an act of 
servitude for the last time. Ammiani stepped in with com¬ 
bative gaiety, but his stiff glance encountered no enemy. 
This astonished him. He turned back into the street and 
meditated. The Pope’s Mouth might, he thought, hold tho 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT. 


139 


key to the riddle. It is not always most comfortable for a 
conspirator to find himself nnsuspected : he reads the blank 
significantly. It looked ill that the authorities should allow 
anything whatsoever to be printed on such a morrow: 
especially ill, if they were on the alert. The neighbourhood 
by the Pope’s Mouth was desolate under dark starlight. 
Ammiani got his fingers into the opening behind the rubbish 
of brick, and tore them on six teeth of a saw that had been 
fixed therein. Those teeth were as voluble to him as loud 
tongues. The Mouth was empty of any shred of paper. 
They meant that the enemy was ready to bite, and that the 
conspiracy had ceased to be active. He perceived that 
a stripped ivy-twig, with the leaves scattered around it, 
stretched at his feet. That was another and corroborative 
sign, clearer to him than prirted capitals. The reading of it 
declared that the Revolt had collapsed. He wound and 
unwound his handkerchief about his fingers mechanically: 
great curses were in his throat. “ I would start for South 
America at dawn, but for her!” he said. The country of 
Bolivar still had its attractions for Italian youth. For a 
certain space Ammiani’s soul was black with passion. He 
was the sou of that fiery Paolo Ammiani who had cast his 
glove at Eugene’s feet, and bade the viceroy deliver it to his 
French master. (The General was preparing to break his 
sword on his knee when Eugene rushed up to him and 
kissed him.) Carlo was of this blood. Englishmen will 
hardly forgive him for having tears in his eyes, but Italians 
follow the Greek classical prescription for the emotions, 
while we take example by the Roman. There is no sneer 
due from us. He sobbed. It seemed that a country was 
lost. 

Ammiani had moved away slowly: he was accidentally 
the witness of a curious scene. There came into the irregular 
triangle, and walking up to where the fruit-stalls stood by 
day, a woman and a man. The man was an Austrian soldier. 
It was an Italian woman by his side. The sight of the 
couple was just then like an incestuous horror to Ammiani. 
She led the soldier straight up to the Mouth, directing his 
hand to it, and, what was far more wonderful, directing it so 
that he drew forth a packet of papers from where Ammiani 
had found none. Ammiani could see the light of them in 
his hand. The Austrian snatched an embrace and ran. 


140 


'VITTOEIA. 


Ammiani was moving over to her to seize and denounce the 
traitress, when he beheld another figure like an apparition 
by her side ; but this one was not a whitecoat. Had it risen 
from the earth ? It was earthy, for a cloud of dust was 
about it, and the woman gave a stifled scream. “ Barto! 

, Barto !” she cried, pressing upon her eyelids. A strong 
husky laugh came from him. He tapped her shoulder 
heartily, and his “ Ha ! ha !” rang in the night air. 

“ You never trust me,” she whimpered from shaken 
nerves. 

He called her, “ Brave little woman ! rare girl I’* 

“ But you never trust me !” 

“ Do I not lay traps to praise you ?” 

“ You make a woman try to deceive you.** 

“ If she could ! If only she could!” 

Ammiani was up with them. 

“ You are Barto Rizzo,” he spoke, half leaning over the 
man in his impetuosity. 

Barto stole a defensive rearward step. The thin light of 
dawn had in a moment divided the extreme starry darkness, 
and Ammiani, who knew his face, had not to ask a second 
time. It was scored by a recent sword-cut. He glanced at 
the woman: saw that she was handsome. It was enough ; 
he knew she must be Barto’s wife, and, if not more cunning 
than Barto, his accomplice, his instrument, his slave. 

“ Five minutes ago I would have sworn you were a 
traitress,” he said to her. 

She was expressionless, as if she had heard nothing; 
which fact, consioering that she was very handsome, seemed 
remarkable to the young man. Youth will not believe that 
stupidity and beauty can go together. 

“ She is the favourite pupil of Bartolommeo Rizzo, signor 
Carlo Ammiani,” quoth Barto, having quite regained his 
composure. “ She is my pretty puppet-patriot. I am not 
in the habit of exhibiting her; but since you see her, there 
she is.” 

Barto had fallen into the Southern habit of assuming ease 
in quasi-rhetorical sentences, but with wary eyes over them. 
The peculiar, contracting, owl-like twinkle debed Ammiani’s 
efforts to penetrate his look ; so he took counsel of his anger, 
and spoke bluntly. 

“ She does your work ?” 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT. 


141 


“ Mncli of it, signor Carlo: as the bullet does the work of 
the rifle.’* 

Beast! was it your wife who pinned the butterfly to the 
eignorina Vittoria’s dress ?” 

“ Signor Carlo Ammiani, you are the son of Paolo, the 
General: you call me beast ? I have dandled you in my 
arms, my little lad, while the bands played ‘ There's yet a 
heart in Italy !' Do you remember it ?” Barto sang out 
half-a-dozen bars. ‘‘ You call me beast ? I’m the one man 
in Milan who can sing you that.” 

“ Beast or man, devil or whatever you are!” cried 
Ammiani, feeling nevertheless oddly unnerved, “you have 
committed a shameful olfence: you, or the woman, your 
wife, who serves j^ou, as I see. You have thwarted the 
best of plots; you have dared to act in defiance of your 
Chief-” 

“ Eyes to him !” Barto interposed, touching over his eye¬ 
balls. 

“And you have thrown your accursed stupid suspicions 
on the signorina Vittoria. You are a mad fool. If I had 
the power, I would order you to be shot at five this morn¬ 
ing ; and that’s the last rising of the light you should 
behold. Why did you do it ? Don’t turn your hellish eyes 
in upon one another, but answer at once ! Why did you do 
it ?” 

“ The signorina Vittoria,” returned Barto—his articula¬ 
tion came forth serpent-like—“ she is not a spy, you think. 
She has been in England: I have been in England. She 
writes; I can read. She is a thing of whims. Shall she 
hold the goblet of Italy in her' hand till it overfloAvs P She 
writes love-letters to an English whitecoat. I have read 
them. Who bids her write ? Her whim! She warns 
her friends not to enter Milan. She—whose puppet is she ? 
Hot yours; not mine. She is the puppet of an English 
Austrian ! ” 

Barto drew back, for Ammiani was advancing. 

“ What is it you mean ? ” he cried. 

“ I mean,” said Ammiani, still moving on him, “ I mean to 
drag you first before Count Medole, and next before the sig¬ 
norina ; and you shall abjure your slandei* in her presence. 
After that I shall deal with you. Mark me ! I have you; I 
am swifter on foot, and I am stronger. Come quietly.” 

Barto smiled in grim contempt. 



142 


VITTORIA. 


“ Keep yonr foot fast on that stone,—^yon’re a prisoner,” 
he replied, and seeing Ammiani coming, “Ket him, my sling- 
stone ! my serpent! ” he signalled to his wife, who threw 
herself right round Ammiani in a tortuous twist hard as 
wire-rope. Stung with irritation, and a sense of disgi’ace 
and ridicule and pitifulness in one, Ammiani, after a 
struggle, ceased the attempt to disentwine her arms, and 
dragged her clinging to him. He was much struck by hear¬ 
ing her count deliberately, in her desperation, numbers from 
somewhere about twenty to one hundred. One hundred was 
evidently the number she had to complete, for when she had 
reached it she threw her arms apart. Barto was out of 
sight. Ammiani waved her on to follow in his steps: ho 
was sick of her presence, and had the sensations of a shame¬ 
faced boy whom a girl has kissed. She went without utter¬ 
ing a word. 

The dawn had now traversed the length of the streets, and 
thrown open the wide spaces of the city. Ammiani found 
himself singing, “ There s yet a heart in Italy ! ” but it was 
hardly the song of his own heart. He slept that night on a 
chair in the private room of his office, preferring not to go 
to his mother’s house. “ There's yet a heart in Italy ! ” was 
on-his lips when he awoke with scattered sensations, all of 
which collected in revulsion against the song. “ There’s a 
very poor heart in Italy ! ” he said, while getting his person 
into decent order; “it’s like the bell in the lunatic’s tower 
between Venice and the Lido: it beats now and then for 
meals: hangs like a carrion-lump in the vulture’s beak 
meanwhile ! ” 

These and some other similar sentiments, and a heat 
about the brows whenever he set them frowning over what 
Barto had communicated concerning an English Austrian, 
assured Ammiani that he had no proper command of him¬ 
self : or was, as the doctors would have told him, bilious. It 
seemed to him that he must have dreamed of meeting the 
dark and subtle Barto Rizzo overnight; on realizing that 
fact he could not realize how the man had escaped him, 
except that when he thought over it, he breathed deep and 
shook his shoulders. The mind will, as you may know, 
sometimes refuse to work when the sensations are shameful 
and astonished. He despatched a messenger with a ‘ good 
morrow ’ to his mother, and then went to a fencing-saloon 


AMMIANI THEOUGH THE MIDNIGHT. 


143 


that was fitted up in the house of Count Medole, where, 
among two or three, there was the ordinary shrugging talk 
of the collapse of the projected outbreak, bitter to hear. 
Luciano Romara came in, and Ammiani challenged him to 
small-sword and broadsword. Both being ireful to boiling 
point, and mad to strike at something, they attacked one 
another furiously, though they were dear friends, and the 
helmet-wires and the padding rattled and smoked to the 
thumps. For half an hour they held on to it, when, their 
blood being up, they flashed upon the men present, including 
the count, crying shame to them for letting a woman alone 
be faithful to her task that night. The blood forsook Count 
Medole’s cheeks, leaving its dead hue, as when blotting- 
paper is laid on running-ink. He deliberately took a pair of 
foils, and offering the handle of one to Ammiani, broke 
the button off the end of his own, and stood to face an 
adversary. Ammiani followed the example: a streak of 
crimson was on his shirt-sleeve, and his eyes had got their 
hard black look, as of the flint-stone, before Romara in 
amazement discovered the couple to be at it in all purity of 
intention, on the sharp edge of the abyss. He knocked up 
their weapons and stood between them, puffing his cigarette 
leisurely. 

“ I fine you both,” he said. 

He touched Ammiani’s sword-arm, nodded with satis¬ 
faction to find that there was no hurt, and cried, “ You have 
an Austrian out on the ground by this time to-morrow 
morning. So, according to the decree ! ” 

“ Captain Weisspriess is in the city,” was remarked. 

“ There are a dozen on the list,” said little Pietro Cardi, 
drawing out a paper. 

“ If you are to be doing nothing else to-morrow morning,” 
added Leone Rufo, “ we may as well march out the whole 
dozen.” 

These two were boys under twenty. 

“ Shall it be the first hit for Captain Wgisspriess?” Count 
Medole said this while handling a fresh and fairly-buttoned 
foil to Ammiani. 

Romara laughed : “ You will require to fence the round of 
Milan city, my dear count, to win a claim to Captain Weiss¬ 
priess. In the first place, I yield him to no man who does 
not show himself a better man than I. It’s the point upon 
which I don’t pay compliments.” 


144 


VITTOEIA. 


Connt Medole bowed. 

“ But, if you want occupation,” added Luciano, closing bis 
speech with a merely interrogative tone. 

“ I scarcely want that, as those who know me will tell you,” 
said Medole, so humbly, that those who knew him felt that 
he had risen to his high seat of intellectual contempt. He 
could indulge himself, having shown his courage. 

“ Certainly not; if you are devising means of subsistence 
for the widows and orphans of the men who will straggle out 
to be slaughtered to-night,” said Luciano ; you have occu" 
pation in that case.” 

“ I will do my best to provide for them,”—the count per¬ 
sisted in his air of humility,—“ though it is a question with 
some whether idiots should live.” He paused effectively, 
and sucked in a soft smile of self-approbation at the stroke. 
Then he pursued: “We meet the day after to-morrow. The 
Pope’s Mouth is closed. We meet here at nine in the morn- 
ning. The next day at eleven at Farugino’s, the barber’s, in 
Monza. The day following at Camerlata, at eleven likewise. 
Those who attend will be made aware of the dispositions for 
the week, and the day we shall name for the rising. It is 
known to you all that, without affixing a stigma on our new 
prima-donna, we exclude her from any share in this business. 
All the Heads have been warned that we yield this night to 
the Austrians. Gentlemen, I cannot be more explicit. I wish 
that I could please you better.” 

“ Oh, by all means,” said Pietro Cardi : “ but patience is 
the pestilence ; I shall roam in quest of adventure. Another 
quiet week is a tremendous trial.” 

He crossed foils with Leone Rufo, but finding no stop to 
the drawn “ swish ’ of the steel, he examined the end of his 
weapon with a lengthening visage,' for it was buttonless. 
Ammiani burst into laughter at the spontaneous boyishness 
in the faces of the pair of ambitious lads. They both offered 
him one of the rapiers upon equal terms. Count Medole’s 
example of intemperate vanity was spoiling them. 

“You know my opinion,” Ammiani said to the count. 
“ I told you last night, and I tell you again to-day, that Bario 
Bizzo is guilty of gi’oss misconduct, and that you must plead 
the same to a sort of excusable treason. Count Medole, you 
cannot wind and unwind a conspiracy like a watch. Who is 
the head of this one ? It is the man Barto Bizzo. He took 


AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT. 145 

proceedings before he got yon to sanction them. Ton maybe 
the vessel, but he commands, or at least, he steers it.” 

The count waited undemonstratively until Ammiani had 
come to an end. “ You speak, my good Ammiani, with an 
energy that does you credit,” he said, “ considering that it is 
not in your own interest, but another person’s. Remember, 
I can bear to have such a word as treason ascribed to my 
acts.” 

Fresh visitors, more or less mixed in the conspiracy, and 
generally willing to leave the management of it to Count 
Medole, now entered the saloon. These were Count Rasati, 
Angelo Dovili, a Piedmontese General, a Tuscan duke, and 
one or two aristocratic notabilities and historic nobodies. 
They were hostile to the Chief whom Luciano and Carlo 
revered and obeyed. The former lit a cigarette, and saying 
to his friend, “ Do you breakfast with your mother ? I w'ill 
come too,” slipped his hand on Ammiani’s arm ; they walked 
out indolently together, with the smallest shade of an appear¬ 
ance of tolerating scorn for those whom they left behind. 

“ Medole has money and rank and influence, and a kind of 
I-don’t-know-what womanishness that makes him push like 
a needle for the lead, and he will have the lead! and when 
he has got the lead, there’s the last chapter of him,” said 
Luciano. “His point of ambition is the perch of the weather¬ 
cock. Why did he set upon you, my Carlo ? I saw the big 
V running up your forehead when you faced him. If you 
had finished him no great harm would have been done.” 

“ I saw him for a short time last night, and spoke to him 
in my father’s style,” said Carlo. “ The reason was, that he 
defended Barto Rizzo for putting the ring about the signo- 
rina VAttoria’s name, and causing the black butterfly to be 
pinned to her dress.” 

Luciano’s brows stood up. 

“ If she sings to-night, depend upon it there will be a dis¬ 
turbance,” he said. “ There may be a rising in spite of 
Medole and such poor sparks, who’re afraid to drop on powder, 
and twirl and fiance till the wind blows them out. And 
mind, the chance rising is commonly the luckiest. If I get a 
command I march to the Alps. We must have the passes of 
the Tyrol. It seems to me that whoever holds the Alps must 
ride the Lombard mare. You spring booted and spurred 
into the saddle from the Alps.” 

L 


146 


VITTORIA. 


Carlo was hurt by bis friend’s indifference to tbe base 
injury done to Vittoria. 

“ I bave told Medole that sbe will sing to-nigbt in spite 
of bim,” be was saying, witb tbe intention of bringing round 
some reproach upon Luciano for his want of noble sympathy, 
when the crash of an Austrian regimental band was beard 
coming up tbe Corso. It stirred him to love bis friend with 
all bis warmth. “ At any rate, for my sake, Luciano, you 
will respect and uphold her.” 

“ Yes, while she’s true,” said Luciano, unsatisfactorily. 

The regiment, in review uniform, followed by two pieces 
of artillery, passed by. Then came a squadron of hussa.rs 
and one of Uhlans, and another foot regiment, more artillery, 
fresh cavalry. 

“ Carlo, if three generations of us pour out our blood to 
fertilize Italian ground, it’s not too much to pay to chase 
those drilled curs.” Luciano spoke in vehement undertone. 

•‘We’ll breakfast and have a look at them in the Piazza 
d’Armi, and show that we Milanese are impressed with a 
proper idea of their power,” said Carlo, brightening as he 
felt the correction of his morbid lover’s anger in Luciano’s 
reaching view of their duties as Italian citizens. The heat 
and whirl of the hour struck his head, for to-morrow they 
might be wrestling with that living engine which had 
marched past, and surely all the hate he could muster should 
be turned upon the outer enemy. He gained his mother’s 
residence with clearer feelings. 


CHAPTER XYI. 

COUNTESS AMMIANI. 

Countess Ammuni was a Venetian lady of a famous House 
the name of which is as a trumpet sounding from the inner 
pages of the Republic. Her face was like a leaf torn from 
an antique volume; the hereditary features told the story of 
her days. The face was sallow and tireless ; life had faded 
like a painted cloth upon the imperishable moulding. She 
had neither fire in her eyes nor colour on her skin. The 



COUNTESS AMMIANI. 


147 


thin close multitndinons wrinkles ran up accurately ruled 
from the chin to the forehead’s centre, and touched faintly 
once or twice beyond, as you observe the ocean ripples run 
in threads confused to smoothness within a space of the grey 
horizon sky. But the chin was firm, the mouth and nose 
were firm, the forehead sat calmly above these shows of 
decay. It was a most noble face ; a fortress face; strong 
and massive, and honourable in ruin, though stripped of 
every fiower. 

This lady in her girlhood had been the one lamb of the 
family dedicated to heaven. Paolo, the General, her lover, 
had wrenched her from that fate to share with him a life of 
turbulent sorrows till she should behold the blood upon his 
grave. She, like Laura Piaveni, had bent her head above a 
slaughtered husband, but, unlike Laura, Marcellina Ammiani 
had not buried her heart with him. Her heart and all her 
energies had been his while he lived; from the visage of death 
it turned to her son. She had accepted the passion for Italy 
from Paolo; she shared it with Carlo. Italian girls of that 
period had as little passion of their own as flowers kept out 
of sunlight have hues. She had given her son to her country 
with that intensely apprehensive foresight of a mother’s love 
which runs quick as Eastern light from the fervour of the 
devotion to the remote realization of the hour of the sacrifice, 
seeing both in one. Other forms of love, devotion in other 
bosoms, may be deluded, but hers will not be. She sees the 
f sunset in the breast of the springing dawn. Often her son 
Carlo stood a ghost in her sight. With this hann ing pro 
phetic vision, it was only a mother, who was at the same 
time a supremely noble woman, that could feel all human to 
him notwithstanding. Her heart beat thick and fast when 
Carlo and Luciano entered the morning-room whe:e she sat, 
and stopped to salute her in turn. 

“Well?” she said, without betraying anxiety or playing 
at carelessness. 

Carlo answered, “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
die. I think that’s the language of peaceful men.” 

“ You are to be peaceful men to-morrow, my Carlo ?” 

“ The thing is in Count Medole’s hands,” said Luciano ; 
“ and he is constitutionally of our Agostino’s opinion that 
we are bound to wait till the Gods kick us into action ; 
and, as Agostino says, Medole has raised himself upon our 

L 2 


148 


VITTOEIA. 


slioulders so as to be tbe more susceptible to tbeir wishes 
when they blow a gale.” 

He informed her of the momentary thwarting of the con¬ 
spiracy, and won Carlo’s gratitude by not speaking of the 
suspicion which had fallen on Vittoria. 

“ Medole,” he said, “ has the principal conduct of the 
business in Milan, as you know, countess. Our Chief cannot 
be everywhere at once; so Medole undertakes to decide for 
him here in old Milan. He decided yesterday afternoon to 
put off our holiday for what he calls a week. Checco, the 
idiot, in whom he confides, gave me the paper signifying the 
fact at four o’clock. There was no appeal; for we can get 
no place of general meeting under Medole’s prudent manage¬ 
ment. He fears our being swallowed in a body if we all 
meet.” 

The news sent her heart sinking in short throbs down to a 
delicious rest; but Countess Ammiani disdained to be servile 
to the pleasure, even as she had strengthened herself to 
endure the shocks of pain. It was a conquered heart that 
she and every Venetian and Lombard mother had to carry; 
one that played its tune according to its nature, shaping no 
action, sporting no mask. If you know what is meant by 
that phrase, a conquered heart, you will at least respect 
them whom you call weak women for having gone through 
the harshest schooling which this world can show example 
of. In such mothers Italy revived. The pangs and the 
martyrdom were theirs. Fathers could march to the field 
or to the grey glacis with their boys ; there was no intoxica¬ 
tion of hot blood to cheer those who sat at home watching 
the rise and fall of trembling scales which said life or death 
for their dearest. Their least shadowy hope could be but a 
shrouded contentment in prospect; a shrouded submission in 
feeling. What bloom of hope was there when Austria stood 
like an iron wall, and their own ones dashing against it were 
as little feeble waves that left a red mark and no more ? 
But, duty to their country had become their religion; sacri¬ 
fice they accepted as their portion; when the last stern evil 
befel them they clad themselves in a veil and walked upon 
an earth they had passed from for all purposes save service 
of hands. Italy revived in these mothers. Their torture 
was that of the reanimation of her frame from the death- 
trance. 


COUNTESS AMMIANI. 


149 


Carlo and Luciano fell hungrily upon dishes of herb- 
flavoured cutlets, and Neapolitan maccaroni, green figs, 
green and red slices of melon, chocolate, and a dry red 
Florentine wine. The countess let them eat, and then gave 
her son a letter that had been delivered at her door an hour 
back by the confectioner Zotti. It proved to be an enclosure 
of a letter addressed to Yittoria by the Chief. Genoa was 
its superscription. From that place it was forwarded by 
running relays of volunteer messengers. There were points 
of Italy which the Chief could reach four-and twenty hours 
in advance of the Government with all its aids and machinery. 
Yittoria had simply put her initials at the foot of the letter. 
Carlo read it eagerly and cast it aside. It dealt in ideas and 
abstract phraseology; he could get nothing of it between his 
impatient teeth; he was reduced to a blank wonder at the 
reason for her sending it on to him. It said indeed—and so 
far it seemed to have a meaning for her:— 

“No backward step. We can bear to fall; we cannot 
afford to draw back.” 

And again;— 

“ Remember that these uprisings are the manifested pulsa¬ 
tions of the heart of your country, so that none shall say she 
is a corpse, and knowing that she lives, none shall say that 
she deserves not freedom. It is the protest of her immortal 
being against her impious violator.” 

Evidently the Chief had heard nothing of the counter¬ 
stroke of Barto Rizzo, and of Count Medole’s miserable 
weakness ; but how, thought Carlo, how can a mind like 
Yittoria’s find matter to suit her in such sentences? He 
asked himself the question, forgetting that a little time gone 
by, while he was aloof from the tumult and dreaming of it, 
this airy cloudy language, and every symbolism, had been 
strong sustaining food, a vital atmosphere, to him. He did 
not for the moment (though by degrees he recovered his last 
night’s conception of her) understand that among the nobler 
order of women there is, when they plunge into strife, a 
craving for idealistic truths, which men are apt, under the 
heat and hurry of their energies, to put aside as stars that 
are meant merely for shining. 

His mother perused the letter—holding it out at arm’s 
length—and laid it by; Luciano likewise. Countess Am- 
miani was an aristocrat: the tone and style of the writing 


150 


VITTORIA. 


were distasteful to her. She allowed her son’s judgement of 
the writer to stand for her own, feeling that she could sur¬ 
render little prejudices in favour of one who appeared to 
hate the Austrians so mortally. On the other hand, she de¬ 
fended Count Medole. Her soul shrank at the thought of 
the revolution being yielded up to theorists and men calling 
themselves men of the people—a class of men to whom Paolo 
her soldier-husband’s aversion had always been formidably 
pronounced. It was an old and a wearisome task for Carlo 
to explain to her that the times were changed and the neces¬ 
sities of the hour different since the day when his father 
conspired and fought for freedom. Yet he could not gainsay 
her when she urged that the nobles should be elected to lead, 
if they consented to lead; for if they did not lead, were they 
not excluded from the movement 

“ I fancy you have defined their patriotism,” said Carlo. 

“ Hay, my son; but you are one of them.” 

“ Indeed, my dearest mother, that is not what they will 
tell you.” 

“ Because you have chosen to throw yourself into the 
opposite ranks.” 

“ You perceive that you divide our camp, madame my 
mother. For me there is no natural opposition of. ranks. 
What are we ? We are slaves : all are slaves. While I am 
a slave, shall I boast that I am of noble birth ? ‘ Proud of a 

coronet with gems of paste !’ some one writes. Save me 
from that sort of pride ! I am content to take my patent of 
nobility for good conduct in the revolution. Then I will be 
count, or marquis, or duke ;—I am not a Republican pure 
blood ;—but not till then. And in the mean time-” 

“ Carlo is composing for his newspaper,” the countess said 
to Luciano. 

“ Those are the leaders who can lead,” the latter replied. 
“ Give the men who are born to it the first chance. Old 
Agostino is right—the people owe them their vantage 
ground. But when they have been tried and they have 
failed, decapitate them. Medole looks upon revolution as 
a description of conjuring trick. He shuffles cards and 
arranges them for a solemn performance, but he refuses to 
cut them if you look too serious or I look too eager; for that 
gives him a suspicion that you know what is going to turn up ; 
and his object is above all things to produce a surprise.” 


COUJNTESS AMMIANI. 151 

“You are both of you unjust to Count Medole,” said tha 
countess. “ He imperils more than all of you.” 

“ Magnificent estates, it is true; but of head or of heart 
not quite so much as some of us,” said Luciano, stroking his 
thick black pendent moustache and chintuft. “ Ah, pardon 
me; yes ! he does imperil a finer cock’s comb. When he 
sinks, and his vanity is cut in two, Medole will bleed so as 
to flood his Lombard flats. It will be worse than death to 
him.” 

Carlo said: “ Do you know what our Agostino says of 
Count Medole ?” 

“Oh, for ever Agostino with you young men!” the 
countess exclaimed. “I believe he laughs at you.” 

“ To be sure he does: he laughs at all. But, what he 
says of Count Medole holds the truth of the thing, and may 
make you easier concerning the count’s estates. He says 
that Medole is vaccine matter which the Austrians apply to 
this generation of Italians to spare us the terrible disease. 
They will or they won’t deal gently with Medole, by-and-by; 
but for the present he will be handled tenderly. He is 
useful. I wish I could say that we thought so too. And 
now,” Carlo stooped to her and took her hand, “shall w'e see 
you at La Scala to-night ?” 

The countess, with her hands lying in his, replied: “ I 
have received an intimation from the authorities that my 
box is wanted.” 

“So you claim your right to occupy it!” 

“ That is my very humble protest for personal liberty.” 

“ Good: I shall be there, and shall much enjoy an intro¬ 
duction to the gentleman who disputes it with you. Besides, 
mother, if the signorina Vittoria sings . . . .” 

Countess Ammiani’s gaze fixed upon her son with a level 
steadiness. His voice threatened to be unequal. All the 
pleading force of his eyes was thrown into it, as he said : 
“ She will sing : and she gives the signal; that is certain. 
We may have to rescue her. If I can place her under your 
charge, I shall feel that she is safe, and is really pro¬ 
tected.” 

The countess looked at Luciano before she answered: 
“ Yes, Carlo, whatever I can do. But you know I have rot 
a scrap of influence.” 

“ Let'her lie on your bosom, my motber.” 


152 


VITTOKIA. 


“ Is this to be another Violetta ?” 

“ Her name is Vittoria,” said Carlo, colouring deeply. A 
certain Violetta had been his boy’s passion. 

Further distracting Austrian band-music was going by. 
This time it was a regiment of Italians in the white and blue 
uniform. Carlo and Luciano leaned over the balcony, smoking, 
and scanned the marching of their fellow-countrymen in the 
livery of servitude. 

“ They don’t step badly,” said one ; and the other, with a 
smile of melancholy derision, said, “We are all brothers !” 

Following the Italians came a regiment of Hungarian 
grenadiers, tall, swart-faced, and particularly light-limbed 
men, looking brilliant in the clean tight military array of 
Austria. Then a squadron of blue hussars, and a Croat 
regiment; after which, in the midst of Czech dragoons and 
German Uhlans and blue Magyar light horsemen, with 
General officers and aides about him, the veteran Austrian 
Field-Marshal rode, his easy hand and erect figure and good- 
humoured smile belying both his age and his reputation 
among Italians. Artillery, and some bravely-clad horse of 
the Eastern frontier, possibly Serb, wound up the procession. 
It gleamed down the length of the Corso in a blinding sun¬ 
light; brass helmets and hussar feathers, white and violet 
surcoats, green plumes, maroon capes, bright steel scabbards, 
bayonet-points,^—as gallant a show as some portentously- 
magnified summer field, flowing with the wind, might be; 
and over all the banner of Austria—the black double-headed 
eagle ramping on a yellow ground. This was the flower of 
iron meaning on such a field. 

The two young men held their peace. Countess Ammiani 
had pushed her chair back into a dark corner of the room 
and was sitting there when they looked back, like a sombre 
figure of black marble. 



IN THE PIAZZA d’aEMI. 


153 


CHAPTER XYH. 

IN THE PIAZZA d’aRMI. 

Carlo and Luciano followed the regiments to the Piazza 
d’Armi, drawn after them hj that irresistible attraction to 
youths who have as yet had no shroud of grief woven for 
them—desire to observe the aspect of a brilliant foe. 

The Piazza d’Armi was the field of Mars of Milan, and an 
Austrian review of arms there used to be a tropical pageant. 
The place was too narrow for broad manoeuvres, or for much 
more than to furnish an inspection of all arms to the General, 
and a display (with its meaning) to the populace. An 
unusually large concourse of spectators lined the square, 
like a black border to a vast bed of fiowers, nodding now 
this way, now that. Carlo and Luciano passed among the 
groups, presenting the perfectly smooth faces of young men 
of fashion, according to the universal aristocratic pattern 
handed down to querulous mortals from Olympus—the 
secret of which is to show a triumphant inaction of the 
heart and the brain, that are rendered positively subservient 
to elegance of limb. They knew the chances were in favour 
of their being arrested at any instant. ISTone of the higher 
members of the Milanese aristocracy were visible; the people 
looked sullen. Carlo was attracted by the tall figure of the 
signor Antonio-Pericles, whom he beheld in converse with 
the commandant of the citadel, out in the square, among 
chatting and laughing General officers. At Carlo’s elbow 
there came a burst of English tongues ; he heard Yittoria’s 
English name spoken with animation. “ Admire those 
faces,” he said to Luciano, but the latter was interchanging 
quiet recognitions among various heads of the crowd; a 
language of the eyelids and the eyebrows. When he did 
look round he admired the fair island faces with an Italian’s 
ardour: “Their women are splendid!” and he no longer 
pushed upon Carlo’s arm to make way ahead. In the 
English group were two sunny-haired girls and a blue-eyed 
lady with the famous English curls, full, and rounding 
richly. This lady talked of ber brother, nnd poin+ed h^'i 
put a.s ho rodv dovii ti.o hpo in t.xoeua.i. h,.,: 


154 


VITTOEIA. 


young officer indicated presently broke away and galloped 
up to her, bending over his horse’s neck to join the conver¬ 
sation. Emilia Belloni’s name was mentioned. He stared, 
and appeared to insist upon a contrary statement. Carlo 
scrutinized his features. While doing so he was accosted, 
and beheld his former adversary of the Motterone, with' 
whom he had yesterday shaken hands in the Piazza of La 
Scala. The ceremony was cordially renewed. Luciano un¬ 
linked his arm from Carlo and left him. 

“ It appears that you are mistaken with reference to 
mademoiselle Belloni,” said Captain Gambier. “We hear 
on positive authority that she will not appear at La Scala 
to-night. It’s a disappointment; though, from what you 
did me the honour to hint to me, I cannot allow myself to 
regret it.” 

Carlo had a passionate inward prompting to trust this 
Englishman with the secret. It was a weakness that he 
checked. When one really takes to foreigners, there is a 
peculiar impulse (I speak of the people who are accessible to 
impulse) to make brothers of them. He bowed, and said, 
“ She does not appear ?” 

“ She has in fact quitted Milan. Hot willingly. I would 
have stopped the business if I had known anything of it ; 
but she is better out of the way, and will be carefully looked 
after, where she is. By this time she is in the Tyrol.” 

“ And where ?” asked Carlo, with friendly interest. 

“ At a schloss near Meran. Or she will be there in a very 
few hours. I feared—I may inform you that we were very 
good friends in England—I feared that when she once came 
to Italy she would get into political scrapes. I dare say you 
agree with me that women have nothing to do with politics. 
Observe : you see the lady who is speaking to the Austrian 
officer ?—he is her brother. Like mademoiselle Belloni, he 
has adopted a fresh name; it’s the name of his uncle, a 
General Pierson in the Austrian service. I knew him in 
England : he has been in our service. Mademoiselle Belloni 
lived with his sisters for some years—two or three. As you 
may suppose, they are all anxious to see her. Shall I intro¬ 
duce you ? They will be glad to know one of her Italian 
friends.’’ 

Carlo hesitated; he longed to hear those ladies talk of 
Yll^tpria, “ Ho they ^peak French ?” 


IN THE PIAZZA D'ARMI. 


155 


“ Oh, dear, yes. That is, as we luckless English people 
speak it. Perhaps you will more easily pardon their seminary 
Italian. “ See there,” Captain Gambier pointed at some 
trotting squadrons; “ these Austrians have certainly a 
matchless cavalry. The artillery seems good. The infantry 
are fine men—very fine men. They have a ‘ woodeny ’ 
movement; but that’s in the nature of the case : tremendous 
discipline alone gives homogenity to all those nationalities. 
Somehow they get beaten. I doubt whether anything will 
beat their cavalry.” 

“ They are useless in street-fighting,” said Carlo. 

“ Oh, street-fighting !” Captain Gambier vented a soldier’s 
disgust at the notion. “ They’re not in Paris. Will you 
step forward ?” 

Just then the tall Greek approached the party of English. 
The introduction was delayed. 

He was addressed by the fair lady, in the island tongue, 
as “ Mr. Pericles.” She thanked him for his extreme conde¬ 
scension in deigning to notice them. But whatever his 
condescension had been, it did not extend to an admitted 
acquaintance with the poor speech of the land of fogs. An 
exhibition of aching deafness was presented to her so reso¬ 
lutely, that at last she faltered, “ What! have you forgotten 
English, Mr, Pericles ? You spoke it the other day.” 

“ It is ze language of necessity—of commerce,” he replied. 

“ But, surely, Mr. Pericles, you dare not presume to tell " 
me you choose to be ignorant of it whenever you please ?” 

“ I do not take grits into ze teeth, madame ; no more.” 

“But you speak it perfectly.” 

“ Perfect it may be, for ze transactions of commerce. ’ I 
wish to keep my teez.” 

“ Alas !” said the lady, compelled, “ I must endeavour to 
swim in French.” 

“At your service, madame,” quoth the Greek, with an 
immediate doubling of the length of his body. 

Carlo heard little more than he knew ; but the confirma¬ 
tion of what we know wdll sometimes instigate us like fresh 
intelligence, and the lover’s heart was quick to apprehend 
far more than he knew in one direction. He divined instan¬ 
taneously that the English-Austrian spoken of by^ Barto 
Ilizzo was the officer sitting on horseback within half a dozen 
yards of him. The certainty of the thought cramped his 


156 


VITTOEIA. 


muscles. JB’or tne rest, it became clear to him that the 
attempt of the millionaire connoisseur to carry oS Vittoria 
had received the tacit sanction of the Austrian authorities; 
for reasons quite explicable, Mr. Pericles, as the English 
lady called him, distinctly hinted it, while affirming with 
vehement self-laudation that his scheme had succeeded for 
the vindication of Art. 

“ The opera you will hear this night,” he said, “ will bo 
hissed. You will hear a chorus of screech-owls to each 
song of that poor Irma, whom the Italian people call ‘crab- 
apple.’ Well; she pleases German ears, and if they can 
support her, it is well. But La Vittoria—your Belloni—■ 
you will not hear; and why ? She has been false to her 
Art, false! She has become a little devil in politics. It is 
a Guy Phwkes femelle ! She has been guilty of the immense 
crime of ingratitude. She is dismissed to study, to peni¬ 
tence, and to the society of her old friends, if they will visit 
her.” 

“ Of course we .will,” said the English lady; “ either 
before or after our^yisit to Venice—delicious Venice!” 

“ Which you have not seen—hein ?” Mr. Pericles snarled ; 
“and have not smelt. There i> no music in Venice! But 
you have nothing but street tinkle-tinkle! A place to live 
in! monDieu!” 

The lady smiled. “ My husband insists upon trying the 
baths of Bormio, and then we are to go over a pass for him 
to try the grape-cure at Meran. If I can get him to promise 
me one whole year in Italy, our visit to Venice may be 
deferred. Our doctor, monsieur, indicates our route. If 
my brother can get leave of absence,’ we shall go to Bormio 
and to Meran with him. He is naturally.astonished that 
Emilia refused to see him ; and she refused to see us too! 
She wrote a letter, dated from the Conservatorio to him,—he 
had it in his saddle-bag, and was robbed of it and other 
precious documents, when the wretched, odious people set 
upon him in Verona—poor boy ! She said in the letter that 
she would see him in a few days after the fifteenth, which 
is to-day.” 

“ Ah ! a few days after the fifteenth, which is to-day,” 
Mr. Pericles repeated. “ I saw you but the day before 
yesterday, madame, or I could have brought you together. 
She is now away—off —out of sight—the perjide! Ah! false 


IN THE PIAZZA D'AEMI. 


157 


that she is ; speak not of her. You remember her in England. 
There it was trouble, trouble; but here, we are a pot on a 
fire with her; speak not of her. She has used me ill, 
madame. I am sick.” 

His violent gesticulation drooped. In a temporary aban¬ 
donment to chagrin, he wiped the moisture from his forehead, 
unwilling or heedless of the mild ironical mouthing of the 
ladies, and looked about; for Carlo had made a movement 
to retire,—he had heard enough for discomfort. 

“ Ah ! my dear Ammiani, the youngest editor in Europe ! 
how goes it with you ?” the Greek called out with revived 
affability. 

Captain Gambier perceived that it was time to present 
his Italian acquaintance to the ladies by name, as a friend 
of mademoiselle Belloni. ■'* 

“ My most dear Ammiani,” Antonio-Pericles resumed ; he 
barely attempted to conceal his acrid delight in casting a 
mysterious shadow of coming vexation over the youth ; “ I 
am afraid you will not like the opera Camilla, or perhaps 
it is the Camilla you will not like. But, shoulder arms, 
march!” (a foot regiment in motion suggested the form of 
the recommendation) “ what is not for to-day may be for 
to-morrow. Let us wait. I think, my Ammiani, you are 
to have a lemon and not an orange. Never mind. Let us 
wait.” • jf 

Carlo got his forehead into a show of smoothness, and 
said, “ Suppose, my dear signor Antonio, the prophet of dark 
things were to say to himself, ‘ Let us wait ?’ ” 

“ Hein—it is deep.” Antonio-Pericles affected to sound 
the sentence, eye upon earth, as a sparrow spies worm or 
crumb. “ Permit me,” he added rapidly ; an idea had struck 
him from his malicious reserve stores,—“ Here is Lieutenant 
Pierson, of the staff of the Field-Marshal of Austria, un¬ 
attached, an old friend of mademoiselle Emilia Belloni,— 
permit me,—here is Count Ammiani, of the Lombardia 
Milanese journal, a new friend of the signorina Yittoria 
Campa—mademoiselle Belloni—the signorina Campa—it is 
the same person, messieurs ; permit me to introduce you,” 
Antonio-Pericles waved his arm between the two young 
men. 

Their plain perplexity caused him to dash his fingers down 
each side of his moustachios in tugs of enjoyment. 


158 


VITTOrJA. 


For Lieutenant Pierson, who displayed a certain readi¬ 
ness to bow, had caught a sight of the repellent stare on 
Ammiani’s face; a still and flat look, not aggressive, yet 
anything but inviting ; like a shield. 

Nevertheless, the lieutenant’s head produced a stiff nod. 
Carlo’s did not respond; but he lifted his hat and bowed 
humbly in retirement to the ladies. 

Captain Gambier stepped aside with him. 

“ Inform Lieutenant Pierson, I beg you,” said Ammiani, 
“that I am at his orders, if he should consider that I have 
insulted him.” 

“By all means,” said Gambier; “only, you know, it’s 
impossible for me to guess what is the matter ; and I don’t 
think he knows.” 

Luciano happened to be coming near. Carlo went up to 
him, and stood talking for half a minute. He then returned 
to Captain Gambier, and said, “ I put myself in the hands of 
a man of honour. You are aware that Italian gentlemen are 
not on terms with Austrian ofiicers. If I am seen exchang¬ 
ing salutes with any one of them, I offend my countrymen; 
and they have enough to bear already.” 

Perceiving that there was more in the background, Gam¬ 
bier simply bowed. He had heard of Italian gentlemen 
incurring the suspicion of their fellows by merely being seen 
in proximity to an Austrian officer. 

As they were parting, Carlo said to him, with a very 
direct meaning in his eyes, “ Go to the opera to-night.” 

“ Yes, I suppose so,” the Englishman answered, and 
digested the look and the recommendation subsequently. 

Lieutenant Pierson had ridden off. The war-machine was 
in motion from end to end; the field of flowers w^as a 
streaming flood ; regiment by regiment, the crash of bands 
went by. Outwardly the Italians conducted themselves with 
the air of ordinary heedless citizens, in wLose bosoms the 
music set no hell-broth boiling. Patrician and plebeian, 
they were chiefly boys; though here and there a middle- 
aged workman cast a look of intelligence upon Carlo and 
Luciano, when these two passed along the crowd. A gloom 
of hoarded hatred was visible in the mass of faces, ready to 
spring fierily. Arms were in the city. With hatred to 
prompt the blow ; wdth arms to strike; so much dishonour 
to avenge; we need not wonder that these youths beheld 


IN THE PIAZZA d’aEMI. 


159 


the bit of liberty in prospect magnified by their mighty 
obfuscating ardour, like a lantern in a fog. Reason did not 
act. They were in such a state when just to say “Italia! 
Italia 1” gave them nerve to match an athlete. So, the 
parading of Austria, the towering athlete, failed of its 
complete lesson of intimidation, and only ruffied the surface 
of insurgent hearts. It seemed, and it was, an insult to the 
trodden people, who read it as a lesson for cravens: their 
instinct commonly hits the bell. They felt that a secure 
supremacy would not have paraded itself: so they divined 
indistinctly that there was weakness somewhere in the 
councils of the enemy. When the show had vanished, their 
spirits hung pausing, like the hollow air emptied of big 
sound, and reacted. Austria had gained little more by her 
display than the conscientious satisfaction of the pedagogue 
who lifts the rod to advise intending juvenile culprits how 
richly it can be merited and how poor will be their future 
grounds of complaint. But before Austria herself had been 
taught a lesson she conceived that she had but one man and 
his feeble instruments, and occasional frenzies, opposed to 
her,—him whom we saw on the Motterone,—which was 
ceasing to be true ; though it was true that the whole popular 
movement flowed from that one man. She observed travel¬ 
ling sparks in the embers of Italy, and crushed them under 
her heel, without reflecting that a vital heat must be gather¬ 
ing where the spots of fire run with such a swiftness. It 
was her belief that if she could seize that one man, whom 
many of the younger nobles and all the people acknowledged 
as their Chief—for he stood then without a rival in his task 
—she would have the neck of conspiracy in her angiy grasp. 
Had she caught him, the conspiracy for Italian freedom 
would not have crowed for many long seasons ; the torch 
Avould have been ready, but not the magazine. He prepared 
it; it was he who preached to the Italians that opportunity 
is a mocking devil when we look for it to be revealed; or, in 
other words, wait for chance; as it is God’s angel when it is 
created within us, the ripe fruit of virtue and devotion. He 
cried out to Italians to wait for no inspiration but their own ; 
that they should never subdue their minds to follow any alien 
example ; nor let a foreign city of fire be their beacon. 
Watching over his Italy; her wrist in his meditative clasp 
year by year ] he stood like a mystic leech by the couch of a 


160 


VITTORIA. 


fair and hopeless frame, pledged to revive it by the inspired 
assurance, shared by none, that life had not forsaken it. A 
body given over to death and vultures—he stood by it in the 
desert. Is it a marvel to you that when the carrion-wings 
swooped low, and the claws fixed, and the beak plucked and 
savoured its morsel, he raised his arm, and urged the half- 
resuscitated frame to some vindicating show of existence ? 
Arise ! he said, even in what appeared most fatal hours of 
darkness. The slack limbs moved; the body rose and fell. 
The cost of the effort was the breaking out of innumerable 
wounds, old and new; the gain was the display of the 
miracle that Italy lived. She tasted her own blood, and 
herself knew that she lived. Then she felt her chains. 
The time was coming for her to prove, by the virtues within 
her, that she was worthy to live, when others of her sons, 
subtle and adept, intricate as serpents, bold, unquestioning 
as well-bestridden steeds, should grapple and play deep for 
her in the game of worldly strife. JSTow—at this hour of 
which I speak—when Austrians marched like a merry flame 
down Milan streets, and Italians stood like the burnt-out 
cinders of the fire-grate, Italy’s faint wrist was still in the 
clutch of her gr*ave leech, who counted the beating of her 
pulse between long pauses, that would have made another 
think life to be heaving its last, not beginning. 

The Piazza d’Armi was empty of its glittering show. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH. 

We quit the Piazza d’Armi. Rumour had its home in 
Milan. On their way to the Caffe La Scala, Luciano and 
Carlo (who held together, determined to be taken together 
if the arrest should come) heard it said that the Chief was 
in Milan. A man passed by and uttered it, going. They 
stopped a second man, who was known to them, and he con¬ 
firmed the rumour. Glad as sunlight once more, they hurried 
to Count Medole forgivingly. The count’s servant assured 
them that his master had left the city for Monza. “ Is 



THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH. 


161 


Medole a coward ?” cried Luciano, almost in the servant’s 
hearing. The fleeing of so important a man looked vile, 
now that they were sharpened by new eagerness. Forthwith 
they were off to Agostino, believing that he would know the 
truth. They found him in bed. “Well, and what?” said 
Agostino, replying to their laughter. “ I am old; too old 
to stride across a day and night, like‘you giants of youth. 
I take my rest when I can, for I must have it.” 

“ But, you know, O conscript father,” said Carlo, willing 
to fall a little into his mood, “ you know that nothing will 
be done to-night.” 

“ Do I know so much ?” Agostino murmured at full length. 

“Do you know that the Chief is in the city?” said Luciano. 

“ A man who is lying in bed knows this,” returned Agostino, 
“ that he knows less than those who are up, though what he 
does know he perhaps digests better. ’Tis you who are the 
fountains, my boys, while I am the pool into which you play. 
Say on.” 

They spoke of the rumour. He smiled at it. They saw 
at once* that the rumour was false, for the Chief trusted 
Agostino. 

“ Proceed to Barto, the mole,” he said, “ Barto the miner; 
he is the father of daylight in the city: of the daylight of 
knowledge, you understand, for which men must dig deep. 
Proceed to him;—if you can find him.” 

But Carlo brought flame into Agostino’s eyes. 

“ The accursed beast! he has pinned the black butterfly 
to the signorina’s dress.” 

Agostino rose on his elbow. He gazed at them. “We 
are followers of a blind mole,” he uttered with an inner 
voice, while still gazing wrathfully, and then burst out in 
grief, “ ‘ Patria o mea creatrix, patria o mea genetrix !’” 

“ The signorina takes none of his warnings, nor do we. 
She escaped a plot last night, and to-night she sings.” 

“ She must not,” said Agfostino imperiously. 

“ She does.” 

“ I must stop that.” Agostino jumped out of bed. 

The young men beset him with entreaties to leave the 
option to her. 

“ Fools!” he cried, plunging a raging leg into his garments. 
“ Here, Iris ! Mercury ! fly to Jupiter and say we are all old 
men and boys in Italy, and are ready to accept a few middle- 

M 


102 


VITTOEIA. 


aged mortals as Grods, if they will come and help us. Young 
fools! Do you know that when you conspire you are in 
harness, and yokefellows, every one ?” 

“ Yoked to that Barto Rizzo !” 

“ Yes ; and the worse horse of the two. Listen, you pair 
of Nuremberg puppet-heads ! If the Chief were here, I 
would lie still in my bed. Medole has stojjped the outbreak. 
Right or wrong, he moves a mass; we are subordinates—• 
particles. The Chief can’t be everywhere. Milan is too 
hot for him. Two men are here, concealed—Rinaldo and 
Angelo Guidascarpi. The rumour springs from that. They 
have slain Count Paul Lenkenstein, and rushed to old Milan 
for work, with the blood on their swords. ' Oh, the tragedy ! 
—when I have time to write it. Let me now go to my girl, 
to my daughter! The blood of the Lenkenstein must rust 
on the steel. Angelo slew him : Rinaldo gave him the cross 
to kiss. You shall have the whole story by-and-by; but this 
will be a lesson to Germans not to court our Italian damsels. 
Lift not that curtain, you Pannonian burglars ! Much do 
we pardon ; but bow and viol meet not, save that they be of 
one wood ; especially not when signor bow is from yonderside 
the Rhoetian Alps, and donzella Viol is a growth of warm 
Lombardy. Witness to it, Angelo and Rinaldo Guidascarpi ! 
bravo ! You boys there—you stand like two Tyrolese salad- 
spoons ! I say that my girl, my daughter, shall never help 
to fire blank shot. I sent my paternal commands to her yes¬ 
terday evening. Does the wanton disobey her father and 
look up to a pair of rocket-headed rascals like you ? Apes ! 
if she sings that song to-night, the ear of Italy will be deaf 
to her for ever after. There’s no engine to stir to-night; all 
the locks are on it; she will send half-a-dozen milklings like 
you to perdition, and there will be a circle of black blood 
about her name in the traditions of the insurrection—do you 
hear ? Have I cherished her for that purpose ? to have her 
dedicated to a bravd ! ” 

Agostino fumed up and down the room in a confusion of 
apparel, savouring his epithets and imaginative peeps while 
he stormed, to get a relish out of something, as beseems the 
poetic temperament. The youths were silenced by him; 
Carlo gladly. 

“ Troop 1 ” said the old man, affecting to contrast his 
attire with theirs; “ two graces and a satyr never yet went 


THE NIGHT OP THE FIFTEENTH. 


163 


to.^etlier, and we’ll not frighten the classic Government of 
Milan. I go ont alone. No, signor Luciano, I am not sworn ^ 
to Count Medole. I see your sneer: contain it. Ah ! what 
a thing is hurry to a mind like mine. It tears up the trees 
by the roots, floods the land, darkens utterly my poor quiet 
universe. I was composing a pastoral when you came in. 
Observe what you have done with my ‘ Lovely Asre of 
Gold!”’ 

Agostino’s transfigurement from lymphatic poet to fiery 
man of action, lasted till his breath was short, when the 
necessity for taking a deep draught of air induced him to 
fall back upon his idle irony. “ Heads, you illustrious young 
gentlemen 1—heads, not legs and arms, move a conspiracy. 
Now, you—think what you will of it—are only legs and arms 
in this business. And if you are insubordinate, you present 
the shocking tabular spirit of the members of the body in 
revolt; which is not the revolt we desire to see. I go to my 
daughter immediately, and we shall all have a fat sleep for 
a week, while the Tedeschi hunt, and stew, and exhaust their 
naughty mispicions. Do you know that the Pope’s Mouth is 
closed ? We made it tell a big lie before it shut tight on its 
teeth—a bad omen, I admit; but the idea w^as rapturously 
neat. Barto, the sinner—be sure I throttle him for putting 
that blot on my swan ; only, not yet, not yet: he’s a blind 
mole, a mad patriot;—but, as I say, our beast Barto drew an 
Austrian to the Mouth last night, and led the dog to take a 
letter out of it, detailing the whole plot of to-night, and how 
men will be stationed at the vicolo here, ready to burst out 
on the Corso, and at the vicolo there, and elsewhere, all over 
the city, carrying fire and sword ; a systematic map of the 
plot. It was addressed to Count Serabiglione! —my boys I 
my boys ! w^hat do you think of it ?—Bravo 1 though Barto 

is a deadly beast if he-” Agostino paused. “Yes, he went 

too far 1 too far! ” 

“ Has he only gone too far, do you say ? ” 

Carlo spoke sternly. His elder w^as provoked enough by 
his deadness of enthusiasm, and that the boy should dare to 
stalk on a bare egoistical lover’s sentiment to be critical of 
him, Agostino, struck him as monstrous. With the treachery 
of controlled rage, Agostino drew near him, and whispered 
some sentences in his ear. Agostino then called him his 
good Spartan boy for keeping brave countenance. “Wait 



1G4 


VITTOEIA. 


till you compreliend ■vv'omen philosopliically. All’s trouble 
■with them till then. At La Scala to-night, my sons! We 
have rehearsed the fiasco; the Tedeschi perform it. Off 
•with you, that I may go out alone! ” 

He seemed to think it an indubitable matter that he would 
find Vittoria and bend her will. 

Agostino had betrayed his weakness to the young men, 
who read him with the keen eyes of a particular disappro¬ 
bation. He delighted in the dark web of intrigue, and 
believed himself to be no ordinary weaver of that sunless 
work. It captured his imagination, filling his pride with a 
mounting gas. Thus he had become allied to Medole on the 
one hand, and to Barto Rizzo on the other. The young men 
read him shrewdly, but speaking was useless. 

Before Carlo parted from Luciano, he told him the burden 
of the whisper, which had confirmed what he had heard on 
the Piazzi d’Armi. It was this : Barto Rizzo, aware that 
Lieutenant Pierson was the bearer of despatches from the 
Archduke in Milan to the marshal, then in Verona, had fol¬ 
lowed, and by extraordinary effort reached Verona in 
advance ; had there tricked and waylaid him, and obtained, 
instead of despatches, a letter of recent date, addressed to him 
by Vittoria, which compromised the insurrectionary iDroject. 

“If that’s the case, my Carlo!” said his friend, and 
shrugged, and spoke in a very wordly fashion of the sex. 

Carlo shook him off. For the rest of the day he was alone, 
shut up with his journalistic pen. The pen traversed seas 
and continents like an old hack to whom his master has 
thrown the reins. Apart from the desperate perturbation of 
his soul, he thought of the Guidascarpi, whom he knew, and 
was allied to, and of the Lenkensteins, whom he knew like¬ 
wise, or had known in the days when Giacomo Piaveni lived, 
and Bianca von Lenkenstein, Laura’s sister, visited among 
the people of her country. Countess Anna and Countess 
Lena von Lenkenstein were the German beauties of Milan, 
lively littie women, and sweet. Between himself and 
Countess Lena there had been tender dealings about the age 
when sweetmeats have lost their attraction, and the charm 
has to be supplied. She was rich, passionate for Austria, 
^ romantic concerning Italy, a vixen in temper, but with a 
pearly light about her temples that kept her picture in his 
memory. And besides, during those days when women are 


THE l^IQHT OP THE FIFTEENTH. 


1H5 


bountiful to us as Goddesses, give they never so little, she 
had deigned to fondle hands with him ; had set the universe 
rocking with a visible heave of her bosom; jingled all the 
keys of mystery; and had once (as to embalm herself in his 
recollection), once had surrendered her lips to him. Countess 
Lena would have espoused Ammiani, believing in her power 
to make an Austrian out of such Italian material. The 
Piaveni revolt had stopped that and all their intercourse by 
the division of the White Hand, as it was called; otherwise, 
the hand of the corpse. Ammiani had known also Count 
Paul von Lenkenstein. To his mind, death did not mean 
much, however pleasant life might be : his father and his 
friend had gone to it gaily ; and he himself stood ready for 
the summons : but the contemplation of a domestic judicial 
execution, which the Guidascarpi seemed to have done upon 
Count Paul, aifrighted him, and put an end to his temporary 
capacity for labour. He felt as if a spent shot were striking 
on his ribs; it was the unknown sensation of fear. Changeing, 
it became pity. “ Horrible deaths these Austrians die!” he 
said. For a while he regarded their lot as the hardest. A 
shaft of sunlight like blazing brass warned him that the day 
dropped. He sent to his mother’s stables, and rode at a 
gallop round Milan, dining alone in one of the common hotel 
gardens, where he was a stranger. A man may have good 
nerve to face the scene which he is certain will be enacted, 
who shrinks from an hour that is suspended in doubt. He 
was aware of the pallor and chill of his looks, and it was no 
marvel to him when two sbirri in mufti, foreign to Milan, 
set their eyes on him as they passed by to a vacant table on 
the farther side of the pattering gold-fish pool, where he sat. 
He divined that they might be in pursuit of the Guidascarpi, 
and alive to read a troubled visage. “ Yet neither Rinaldo 
nor Angelo would look as I do now,” he thought, perceiving 
that these men were judging by such signs, and had their 
ideas. Democrat as he imagined himself to be, he despised 
w'ith a nobleman’s contempt creatures who were so dead to 
the character of men of birth as to suppose that they were 
pale and remorseful after dealing a righteous blow, and that 
they trembled’! Ammiani looked at his hand: no force of 
his will could arrest its palsy. The Guidascarpi were sons 
of Bologna. The stupidity of Italian sbirri is proverbial, or 
a Milanese cavalier would have been astonished to conceive 


166 


VITTORIA. 


himself mistaken for a Bolognese. He beckoned to the 
waiter, and said, “ Tell me what place has bred those two 
fellows on the other side of the fountain.” After a side-glance 
of scrutiny, the reply was, “Neapolitans.” The waiter was 
ready to make an additional remark, hut Ammiani nodded 
and communed with a toothpick. He was sure that those 
Neapolitans were recruits of the Bolognese Polizia; on the 
track of the Guidascarpi, possibly. As he was not unlike 
Angelo Guidascarpi in figure, he became uneasy lest they 
should blunder ’twixt him and La Scala; and the notion of 
any human power stopping him short of that destination, 
made Ammiani’s hand perfectly firm. He drew on his gloves, 
and named the place whither he was going, aloud. “ Excel¬ 
lency,” said the water, while taking up and pretending to 
reckon the money for the bill: “ they have asked me whether 
there are two Counts Ammiani in Milan.” Carlo’s eye¬ 
brows started, “ Can they be after me he thought, and 
said : “ Certainly ; there is twice anything in this world, 
and Milan is the epitome of it.” Acting a part gave him 
Agostino’s catching manner of speech. The waiter, who 
knew him now, took this for an order to say “Yes.” He 
had evidently a respect for Ammiani’s name : Carlo sup¬ 
posed that he was one of Milan’s fighting men. A sort of 
answer leading to “Yes” by a circuit and the assistance 
of the hearer, was conveyed to the sbirri. They were 
true Neapolitans : quick to suspect, irresolute upon their 
suspicions. He was soon aware that they were not to be 
feai-ed more than are the general race of bunglers, whom the 
Gods sometimes strangely favour. They perplexed him: for 
why were they after him ? and what had made them ask 
' whether he had a brother ? He was followed, but not 
molested, on his way to La Scala. 

Ammiani’s heart was in full play as he looked at the 
curtain of the stage. The Night of the Fifteenth had come. 
For the first few moments his strong excitement fronting the 
curtain, amid a great host of hearts thumping and quivering 
up in the smaller measures like his own, together with the 
predisposing belief that this was to be a night of events, 
stopped his consciousness that all had been thwarted ; that 
there was nothing but plot, plot, counterplot and tangle, dis¬ 
union, silly subtlety, jealousy, vanity, a direful congregation 
of antagonistic elements; threads all loose, tongues wagging, 


THE PRIMA DONNA. 


wr 

pressure here, pressure there, like an uncertain rage in the 
entrails of the undirected earth, and no master hand on the 
spot to fuse and point the intense distracted forces. 

The curtain, therefore, hung like any common opera- 
screen ; big only with the fate of the new prima donna. He 
was robbed even of the certainty that Vittoria would appear. 
From the blank aspect of the curtain he turned to the house, 
which was crowding fast, and was not like listless Milan 
about to criticize an untried voice. The commonly empty 
boxes of the aristocracy were full of occupants, and for a 
wonder the white uniforms were not in excess, though they 
were to be seen. The first person whom Ammiani met was 
Agostino, who spoke gruffly. Vittoria had been invisible to 
him. Neither the maestro, nor the impresario, nor the 
waiting-women had heard of her. Uncertainty was behind 
the curtain, as well as in front; but in front it was the un¬ 
certainty which is tipped with expectation, hushing the 
usual noisy chatter, and setting a daylight of eyes forward. 
Ammiani spied about the house, and caught sight of Laura 
Piaveni with Colonel Corte by her side. The Lenkensteins 
were in the Archduke’s box. Antonio-Pericles, and the 
English lady and Captain Gambier, were next to them. 
The appearance of a white uniform in his mother’s box 
over the stage caused Ammiani to shut up his glass. He 
was making his way thither for the purpose of commencing 
the hostilities of the night, when Countess Ammiani entered 
the lobby, and took her son’s arm with a grave face and a 
trembling touch. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE PRIMA DONNA, 

“ Whoever is in my box is my guest,” said the countess 
adding a convulsive imperative pressure on Carlo’s arm, to 
aid the meaning of her deep underbreath. She was a woman 
who rarely exacted obedience, and she was spontaneously 
obeyed. No questions could be put, no explanations given 
in the crash, and they threaded on amid numerous greetings 




168 


VITTORIA. 


in a place ■where Milanese society had habitually ceased to 
gather, and found itself now in assembly with unconcealed 
sensations of strangeness. A card lay on the table of the 
countess’s private retiring-room: it bore the name of General 
Pierson. She threw off her black lace scarf. “ Angelo 
Guidascarpi is in Milan,” she said. “ He has killed one of 
the Lenkensteins, sword to sword. He came to me an hour 
after you left; the sbirri were on his track; he passed for 
my son. He is now under the charge of Barto Rizzo, dis¬ 
guised ; probably in this house. His brother is in the city. 
Keep the cowl on your head as long as possible; if these 
hounds see and identify you, there will be mischief.” She 
said no more, satisfied that she was understood, but opening 
the door of the box, passed in, and returned a stately 
acknowledgment of the salutations of two military officers. 
Carlo likewise bent his head to them; it was like bending 
his knee, for in the younger of the two intruders he recog¬ 
nized Lieutenant Pierson. The countess accepted a vacated 
seat; the cavity of her ear accepted the General’s apologies. 
He informed her that he deeply regretted the intrusion ; he 
was under orders to be present at the opera, and to be as 
near the stage as possible, the countess’s box being desig¬ 
nated. Her face had the unalterable composure of a painted 
head upon an old canvas. The General persisted in tender¬ 
ing excuses. She replied, “ Tt is best, when one is too weak 
to resist, to submit to an outrage quietly.” General Pierson 
at once took the position assigned to him; it was not an 
agreeable one. Between Carlo and the lieutenant no attempt 
at conversation was made. 

The General addressed his nephew in English. “ Did you 
see the girl behind the scenes, Wilfrid ?” 

The answer was “ No.” 

“ Pericles has her fast shut up in the Tyrol: the best 
habitat for her if she objects to a whipping. Did you see 
Irma ?” 

“‘No ; she has disappeared too.” 

“ Then I suppose we must make up our minds to an opera 
without head or tail. As Pat said of the sack of potatoes, 
‘ ’twould be a mighty fine beast if it had them.’ ” 

The officers had taken refuge in their opera-glasses, and 
spoke while gazing round the house. i 

“ If neither this girl nor Irma is going to appear, there is 


the peima donna. 


1G9 


no positive necessity for my presence here,” said the General, 
reduced to excuse himself to himself. “ I'll sit through tlie 
first scene and then beat a retreat. I might be off at once; 
the affair looks harmless enough : only, you know, when 
there’s nothing to see, you must report that you have seen it, 
or your superiors are not satisfied.” 

The lieutenant was less able to cover the irksomeness of 
his situation with easy talk. His glance rested on Countess 
Lena von Lenkenstein, a quick motion of whose hand made 
him say that he should go over to her. 

“ Very well,” said the General; “ be careful that you give 
no hint of this horrible business. They will hear of it when 
they get home : time enough !” 

Lieutenant Pierson touched at his sister’s box on the way. 
She was very excited, asked innumerable things,—whether 
there was danger ? whether he had a whole regiment at 
hand to protect peaceable persons ? “ Otherwise,” she said, 

“I shall not be able to keep that man (her husband) in Italy 
another week. He refused to stir out to-night, though we 
know that nothing can happen. Your prima donna celestis- 
sima is out of harm’s w^ay.” 

“ Oh, she is safe,—ze minx cried Antonio-Pericles, 
laughing and saluting the Duchess of Graatli, who presented 
herself at the front of her box. Major de Pyrmont was 
behind her, and it delighted the Greek to point them out to 
the English lady, with a simple intimation of the character 
of their relationship, at which her curls shook sadly. 

“ Pardon, madame,” said Pericles. “ In Italy, a husband 
away, ze friend takes title : it is no more.” 

“ It is very disgraceful,” she said. 

“ Ze morales, madame, suit ze sun.” 

Captain Gambier left the box with Wilfrid, expressing in 
one sentence his desire to fling Pericles over to the pit, and 
in another his belief that an English friend, named Merthyr 
Powys, was in the house. 

“ He won’t be in the city four-and-twenty hours,” said 
"Wilfrid. 

“ Well; you’ll keep your tongue silent.” 

“ By heavens ! Gambier, if you knew the insults we have 
to submit to ! The temper of angels couldn’t stand it. I’m 
sorry enough for these fellows, with their confounded country, 
but it’s desperate work to be civil to them; upon my honour, 


170 


VITTOEIA. 


it is! I wisli they would stand up and let us have it over. 
We have to bear more'from the women than the men.” 

“I leave you to cool,” said Gambier. 

The delayed absence of the maestro from his post at the 
head of the orchestra, where the musicians sat awaiting him, 
seemed to confirm a rumour that was now circling among 
the audience, warning all to prepare for a disappointment. 
His baton was brought in and laid on the book of the new 
overture. When at last he was seen bearing onward through 
the music-stands, a low murmur ran round. Rocco paid no 
heed to it. His demeanour produced such satisfaction in 
the breast of Antonio-Pericles that he rose, and was guilty 
of the barbarism of clapping his hands. Meeting Ammiani 
in the lobby, he said, “ Come, my good friend, you shall help 
me to pull Irma through to-night. She is vinegar—we will 
mix her with oil. It is only for to-night, to save that poor 
Rocco’s opera.” 

“Irma!” said Ammiani; “she is by this time in Tyrol. 
Your Irma will have some difficulty in showing herself here 
within sixty hours.” 

“How!” cried Pericles, amazed, and plucking after Carlo 
to stop him. “ I bert you-” 

“ How much ?” , 

“ I bet you a thousand florins you do not see la Vittoria 
to-night.” 

“ Good. I bet you a thousand florins you do not see Irma.” 

“No, Yittoria, I say!” 

“ And I say, no Lazzeruola !” 

Agostino, who was pacing the lobby, sent Pericles dis¬ 
traught with the same tale of the rape of Irma. ^ He rushed 
to Signora Piaveni’s box and heard it repeated. There he 
beheld, sitting in the background, an old English acquaint¬ 
ance, with whom Captain Gambier was conversing. 

“ My dear Powys, you have come all the way from England 
to see your favourite’s first night. You will be shocked, sir. 
She has neglected her Art. She is exiled, banished, sent 
away to study and to compose her mind.” 

“ I think you are mistaken,” said Laura. “ You will see 
her almost immediately.” 

“ Signora, pardon me ; do I not know best ?” 

“You may have contrived badly.” 



THE PRIMA DONNA. 


171 


Pericles blinked and gnawed liis monstaclie as if it were 
food for patience. 

“ I -would wager a milliard of francs,” he muttered. With 
absolute pathos he related to Mr. Powys the aberrations of 
the divinely-gifted voice, the wreck which Vittoria strove 
to become, and from which he alone was striving to rescue 
her. He used abundant illustrations, coarse and quaint, and 
w’as half hysterical; flashing a white fist and thumping the 
long projection of his knee with a -wolfish aspect. His 
grotesque sincerity was little short of the shedding of tears. 

“ And your sister, my dear Powys ?” he asked, as one 
returning to the consideration of shadows. 

“ My sister accompanies me, but not to the opera.” 

“For another campaign—hein ?” 

“ To winter in Italy, at all events.” 

Carlo Ammiani entered and embraced Merthyr Powys 
warmly. The Englishman was at home among Italians: 
Pericles, feeling that he was not so, and regarding them all as 
a community of fever-patients without hospital, retired. To 
his mind it -was the vilest treason, the grossest selfishness, to 
conspire or to wink at the sacrifice of a voice like Vittoria’s to 
such a temporal matter as this, which they called patriotism. 
He looked on it as one might look on the Hindoo drama of a 
Suttee. He saw in it just that stupid action of a whole body 
of fanatics combined to precipitate the devotion of a precious 
thing to extinction. And worse; for life was common, and 
women and Hindoo widows were common; but a Vittorian 
voice was but one in a generation—in a cycle of years. The 
religious belief of the connoisseur extended to the devout 
conception that her voice was a spiritual endowment, the 
casting of which priceless jewel into the bloody ditch of 
pacriots was far more tragic and lamentable than any dis¬ 
astrous concourse of dedicated lives. He shook the lobby 
-vdth his tread, thinking of the great night this might have 
been but for Yittoria’s madness. The overture was coming 
to an end. By tightening his arms across his chest he gained 
some outward composure, and fixed his eyes upon the stage. 

While sitting with Laura Piaveni and Merthyr Powys, 
Ammiani saw the apparition of Captain Weisspriess in his 
mother’s box. He forgot her injunction, and hurried to her 
side, leaving the doors open. His passion of anger spurned 
her admonishing grasp of his arm, and with his glove ho 


172 


VITTOEIA. 


smote tlie Austrian officer on the face. Weisspriess pinched 
his sword out; the house rose; there was a moment like 
that of a wild beast’s show of teeth. It passed: Captain 
Weisspriess withdrew in obedience to General Pierson’s 
command. The latter wrote on a slip of paper that two 
pieces of artillery should be placed in position, and a squad 
of men about the doors : he handed it out to Weisspriess. 

“ I hope,” the General said to Carlo, “ we shall be able to 
arrange things for you without the interposition of the 
authorities.” 

Carlo rejoined, “ General, he has the blood of our family 
on his hands. I am ready.” 

The General bowed. He glanced at the countess for a 
sign of maternal weakness, saw none, and understood that a 
duel was down in the morrow’s bill of entertainments, as 
well as a riot possibly before dawn. The house had revealed 
its temper in that short outburst, as a quivering of quick 
lightning-flame betrays the forehead of the storm. 

Countess Ammiani bade her son make fast the outer door. 
Her sedate energies could barely control her agitation. In 
helping Angelo Guidascarpi to evade the lawg she had im¬ 
perilled her son and herself. Many of the Bolognese sbirri 
were in pursuit of Angelo. Some knew his person ; some 
did not; but if those two before whom she had identified 
Angelo as being her son Carlo chanced now to be in the 
house, and to have seen him, and heard his name, the risks 
were great and various. 

“ Ho you know that handsome young Count Ammiani ?’* 
Countess Lena said to Wilfrid. “ Perhaps you do not think 
him handsome ? He was for a short time a playfellow of 
mine. He is more passionate than I am, and that does not 
say a little; I warn you! Look how excited he is. No 
wonder. He is—everybody knows it—he is la Vittoria’s 
lover.” 

Countess Lena uttered that sentence in Italian. The soft 
tongue sent it like a coiling serpent through Wilfrid’s veins. 
In English or in German it would not have possessed the 
deadly meaning. 

She may have done it purposely, for she and her sister 
Countess Anna studied his face. The lifting of the curtain 
drew all eyes to the stage. 

Bocco Bicci’s bBon struck for the opening of one of his 


THE PEIMA DONNA. 


173 


spirited choruses ; a chorus of villagers, who sing to the 
burden that Happiness, the aim of all humanity, has pro¬ 
mised to visit the earth this day, that she may witness the 
union of the noble lovers, Camillo and Camilla. Then a 
shepherd sings a verse, with his hand stretched out to the 
impending castle. There lives Count Orso : will he permit 
their festivities to pass undisturbed ? The puling voice is 
crushed by the chorus, which protests that the heavens are 
above Count Orso. But another villager tells of Count 
Orso’s power, and hints at his misdeeds. The chorus rises 
in reply, warning all that Count Orso has ears wherever 
three are congregated ; the villagers break apart and eye 
one another distrustfully, reuniting to the song of Happiness 
before they disperse. Camillo enters solus. Montini, as 
Camillo, enjoyed a warm reception; but as he advanced to 
deliver his romanzo, it was seen that he and Rocco inter¬ 
changed glances of desperate resignation. Camillo has had 
love passages with Michiella, Count Orso’s daughter, and 
does not hesitate to declare that he dreads her. The orphan 
Camilla, who has been reared in yonder castle with her, as 
her sister, is in danger during all these last minutes which 
still retain her from his arms. 

“ If I should never see her—I who, like a poor ghost 
upon the shores of the dead river, have been flattered with 
the thought that she would' fall upon my breast like a ray 
of the light of Elysium—if I should never see her more!” 
The famous tenore threw his whole force into that outcry of 
projected despair, and the house was moved by it: there 
were many in the house who shared his apprehension of a 
foul mischance. 

Thenceforward the opera and the Italian audience were 
as one. All that was uttered had a meaning, and was 
sympathetically translated. Camilla'ihej perceived to be a 
gi-ave burlesque with a core to it. The quick-witted 
Italians caught up the interpretation in a flash. ‘ Count 
Orso’ Austria; ‘ Michiella ’ is Austria’s spirit of intrigue; 
‘ Camillo ’ is indolent Italy, amorous Italy, Italy aimless ; 
‘ Camilla ’ is Young Italy ! 

Their eagerness for sight of Vittoria was now red-hot, 
and when Camillo exclaimed “ She comes !” many rose from 
their seats. 

A scrap of paper was handed to Antonio-Pericles from 


174 


VITTOEIA. 


Captain Weisspriess, saying briefly that he had fonnd Irma 
in the carriage instead of the little “ v,” thanked him for 
the joke, and had brought her back. Pericles was there¬ 
fore not surprised when Irma, as Michiella, came on, breath¬ 
less, and looking in an excitement of anger; he knew that 
he had been tricked. 

Between Camillo and Michiella a scene of some vivacity 
ensued—reproaches, threats of calamity, otfers of returning 
endearment upon her part; a display of courtly scorn upon 
his. Irma made her voice claw at her quandum lover very 
finely ; it was a voice with claws, that entered the hearing 
sharp-edged, and left it plucking at its repose. She was 
applauded relishingly when, after vainly wooing him, she 
turned aside and said— 

“ What change is this in one who like a reed 

Bent to my twisting hands ? Does he recoil ? 

Is this the hound whom I have used to feed 
With sops of vinegar and sops of oil ?” 

Michiella’s further communications to the audience make 
it known that she has allowed the progress toward the cere¬ 
monies of espousal between Camillo and Camilla, in order, 
at the last moment, to show her power over the youth and 
to plunge the detested Camilla into shame and wretched¬ 
ness. 

Camillo retires : Count Orso appears. There is a duet 
between father and daughter: she confesses her passion for 
Camillo, and entreats her father to stop the ceremony;—and 
here the justice of the feelings of Italians, even in their heat 
of blood, was noteworthy. Count Orso says that,he would 
willingly gratify his daughter, as it would gratify himself, 
but that he must respect the law. “ The law is of your own 
making,” says Michiella. “ Then, the more must I respect 
it,” Count Orso replies. 

The audience gave Austria credit for that much in a short 
murm ur. 

Michiella’s aside, “ Till anger seizes him I wait!” created 
laughter; it came in contrast with an extraordinary pom¬ 
posity of self-satisfaction exhibited by Count Orso—the 
flower-faced, tun-bellied basso, Lebruno. It was irresistible. 
He stood swollen out like a morning cock. To make it 
further telling, he took off his yellow bonnet with a black- 


THE PEIMA DONNA. 


175 


gloved hand, and thumped the significant colours promi¬ 
nently on his immense chest—an idea, not of Agostino’s, 
but Lebruno’s own; and Agostino cursed with fury. Both 
he and Rocco knew that their joint labour would probably 
have only one night’s display of existence in the Austrian 
dominions, but they grudged to Lebruno the chief merit of 
despatching it to the Shades. 

The villagers are heard approaching. “ My father !” cries 
Michiella, distractedly ; “ the hour is near: it will be death 
to your daughter! Imprison Camillo : I can bring twenty 
witnesses to prove that he has sworn you are illegally the 
lord of this country. You will rue the marriage. Do as 
you once did. Be bold in time. The arrow-head is on the 
string—cut the string!” 

“ As I once did ?” replies Orso with frown terrific, like a 
black crest. He turns broadly and receives the chorus of 
countrymen in paternal fashion—an admirably acted bit of 
grave burlesque. 

By this time the German portion of the audience had, by 
one or other of the senses, dimly divined that the opera was 
a shadow of something concealed—thanks to the buffo-basso 
Lebruno. Doubtless they would have seen this before, but 
that the Austrian censorship had seemed so absolute a safe¬ 
guard. 

“ My children 1 all are my children in this my gladsome 
realm 1” Count Orso says, and marches forth, after receiving 
the compliment of a choric song in honour of his paternal 
government. Michiella follows him. 

Then came the deep suspension of breath. For, as upon 
the midnight you count bell-note after bell-note of the toil¬ 
ing hour, and know not in the darkness whether there shall 
be one beyond it, so that you hang over an abysm until 
Twelve is sounded, audience and actors gazed with equal 
expectation at the path winding round from the castle, wait¬ 
ing for the voice of the new prima donna. 

“ Mia madre !” It issued tremblingly faint. Hone could 
say who was to appear. 

Rocco Ricci struck twice with his baton, flung a rajdiant 
glance across his shoulders for all friends, and there was 
joy in the house. Vittoria stood before them. 


17G 


VITTORIA. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE OPERA OF CAMILLA. 

She was dressed like a noble damsel from tlie bands of 
Titian. An Italian audience cannot but be critical in their 
first glance at a prima donna, for they are asked to do 
homage to a queen who is to be taken on her merits : all 
that they have heard and have been taught to expect of her 
is compared swiftly with the observation of her appearance 
and her manner. She is crucially examined to discover 
defects. There is no boisterous loyalty at the outset. And 
as it was now evident that Vittoria had chosen to imper¬ 
sonate a significant character, her indications of method 
were jealously watched for a sign of inequality, either in 
her motion, or the force of her eyes. So silent a reception 
might have seemed cruel in any other case; though in all 
cases the candidate for laurels must, in common with the 
criminal, go through the ordeal of justification. Men do not 
heartily bow their heads until they have subjected the 
aspirant to some personal contest, and find themselves over¬ 
matched. The senses, ready to become so slavish in adula¬ 
tion and delight, are at the beginning more exacting than 
the judgement, more imperious than the will. A figure in 
amber and pale blue silk was seen, such as the great Venetian 
might have sketched from his windows on a day when the 
Doge went forth to wed the Adriatic : a superb Italian head, 
with dark banded hair-braid, and dark strong eyes under 
unabashed soft eyelids. She moved as, after long gazing 
at a painting of a fair woman, we may have the vision of 
her moving from the frame. It was an animated picture 
of ideal Italia. The sea of heads right up to the highest 
walls fronted her glistening, and she was mute as moonrise. 
A virgin who loosens a dove from her bosom does it with 
no greater effort than Vittoria gave out her voice. The 
white bird flutters rapidly; it circles and takes its flight. 
The voice seemed to be as little the singer’s own. 

The theme was as follows :—Camilla has dreamed over¬ 
night that her lost mother came to her bedside to bless her 
nuptials. Her mother was folded in a black shroud, looking 
formless as death, like very death, save that death sheds n 


THE OPEEA OP CAMILLA. 


177 


tears. She wept, without change of voice, or mortal shudder¬ 
ing, like one whose nature weeps: “ And with the forth- 
flowing of her tears the knowledge of her features was 
revealed to me.” Behold the Adige, the Mincio, Tiber, and 
the Po!—such great rivers were the tears pouring from her 
eyes. She threw apart the shroud : her breasts and her 
limbs were smooth and firm as those of an immortal Goddess : 
but breasts and limbs showed the cruel handwriting of base 
men upon the body of a martyred saint. The blood from 
those deep gashes sprang out at intervals, mingling with 
her tears. She said :— 

“ My child ! were I a Goddess, my wounds would heal. 
Were I a saint, I should be in Paradise. I am no Goddess, 
and no saint: yet I cannot die. My wounds flow and my 
tears. My tears flow because of no fleshly anguish : I par¬ 
don my enemies. My blood flows from my body, my tears 
from my soul They flow to wash out my shame. I have 
to expiate my soul’s shame by my body’s shame. Oh ! how 
shall I tell you what it is to walk among my children 
unknown of them, though each day I bear the sun abroad 
like my beating heart; each night the moon, like a heart 
with no blood in it. Sun and moon they see, but not me ! 
They know not their mother. I cry to God^ The answer 
of our God is this :—‘ Give to thy children one by one to 
drink of thy mingled tears and blood:—then, if there is 
virtue in them they shall revive, thou shalt revive. If virtue 
is not in them, they and thou shall continue prostrate, and 
the ox shall walk over you.’ From heaven’s high altar, 
O Camilla, my child, this silver sacramental cup was reached 
to me. Gather my tears in it, fill it with my blood, and 
drink.” 

The song had been massive in monotones, almost Gregorian 
in its severity up to this point. 

“ I took the cup. I looked my mother in the face. I 
filled the cup from the flowing of her tears, the flowing of 
her blood; and I drank !” 

Vittoria sent this last phase ringing out forcefully. From 
the inveterate contralto of the interview, she rose to pure 
soprano in describing her own action. “ And I drank,” was 
given on a descent of the voice: the last note was in the 
minor key—^it held the ear as if more must follow : like a 
wail after a triumph of resolve. It was a masterpiece of 

N 


178 


VITTORIA. 


audacious dramatic musical genius addressed with sagacious 
cunning and courage to the sympathizing audience present. 
The supposed incompleteness kept them listening; the in¬ 
tentness sent that last falling (as it were, broken) note 
travelling awakeningly through their minds. It is the effect 
of the minor key to stir the hearts of men with this par¬ 
ticular suggestiveness. The house rose, Italians and Germans 
together. Genius, music, and enthusiasm break the line 
of nationalities. A rain of nosegays fell about Yittoria ; 
evvivas, bravas, shouts—all the outcries of delirious men 
surrounded her. Men and women, even among the hardened 
chorus, shook together and sobbed. “ Agostino ! ” and 
“ Rocco !” were called ; “ Yittoria !” “ Yittoria !” above all, 
with increasing thunder, like a storm rushing down a valley, 
striking in broad volume from rock to rock, humming remote, 
and bursting up again in the face of the vale. Her name 
was sung over and over—“ Yittoria ! Yittoria!” as if the 
mouths were enamoured of it. 

“ Evviva la Vittoria e V Italia! ” was sung out from the 
body of the house. 

An echo replied— 

“ ‘ Italia e ilpremio della Yittoria! a well-known saying 
gloriously adapted, gloriously rescued from disgrace. 

But the object and source of the tremendous frenzy stood 
like one frozen by the revelation of the magic the secret of 
which she has studiously mastered. A nosegay, the last of 
the tributary shower, discharged from a distance, fell at hei 
feet. She gave it unconsciously preference over the rest, 
and picked it up. A little paper was fixed in the centre. 
She opened it with a mechanical hand, thinking there might 
be patriotic orders enclosed for her. It was a cheque for one 
thousand guineas, drawn upon an English banker by the 
hand of Antonio-Pericles Agiolopoulos ;—freshly drawn ; the 
ink was only half dried, showing signs of the dictates of a 
furious impulse. This dash of solid prose, and its convinc¬ 
ing proof that her Art had been successful, restored Yit- 
toria’s composure, though not her early statuesque simplicity. 
Rocco gave an inquiring look to see if she would repeat the 
song. She shook her head resolutely. Her opening of the 
paper in the bouquet had quieted the general ebullition, and 
the expression of her wish being seen, the chorus was per¬ 
mitted to usurp her place. Agostino paced up and dowm the 


THE OPERA OF CAMILLA. 


179 


lobby, fearful that he had been guilty of leading her to anti¬ 
climax. He met Antonio-Pericles, and told him so; adding 
(for now the mask had been seen through, and was use¬ 
less any further) that he had not had the heart to put 
back that vision of Camilla’s mother to a later scene, lest an 
interruption should come which would altogether preclude 
its being heard. Pericles affected disdain of any success 
which Vittoria had yet achieved. “Wait for Act the Third,” 
he said; but his irritable anxiousness to hold intercourse 
wdth every one, patriot or critic, German, English, or Italian, 
betrayed what agitation of exultation coursed in his veins. 
“ Aha! ” was his commencement of a greeting; “ was 
Antonio-Pericles wrong when he told you that he had a 
prima donna for you to amaze all Christendom, and whose 
notes were safe and firm as the footing of the angels up and 
down Jacob’s ladder, my friends ? Aha! ” ' * 

“ Do you see that your uncle is signalling to you ? ” 
Countess Lena said to Wilfrid. 

He answered like a man in a mist, and looked neither at 
her nor at the General, who, in default of his obedience to 
gestures, came good-humouredly to the box, bringing Cap¬ 
tain Weisspriess with him. 

“ We’re assisting at a pretty show,” he said. 

“ I am in love with her voice,” said Countess Anna. 

“ Ay ; if it were only a matter of voices, countess.” 

“ I think that these good people require a trouncing,” said 
Captain Weisspriess. 

“ Lieutenant Pierson is not of your opinion,” Countess 
Anna remarked. 

Hearing his own name, Wilfrid turned to them with a 
weariness well acted, but insufficiently to a jealous observa¬ 
tion, for his eyes were quick under the carelessly-dropped 
eyelids, and ranged keenly over the stage while they were 
affecting to assist his fluent tongue. 

Countess Lena levelled her opera-glass at Carlo Ammiani, 
and then placed the glass in her sister’s hand. Wilfrid 
drank deep of bitterness. “ That is Yittoria’s lover,he 
thought; “ the lover of the Emilia who once loved me ! ” 

General Pierson may have noticed this by-play: he said to 
his nephew in the brief military tone: “ Go out; see that 
the whole regiment is handy about the house; station a 
dozen men, with a serjeant, at each of the back-doors, and 

V 2 


ISO 


VITTORIA 


remain below. I very much mistake, or we stall Have to 
make a capture of this little woman to-nigbt.” ■ 

“ How on earth,” he resumed, while Wilfrid rose 
savagely and went out with his stilfest bow, “ this opera 
was permitted to appear, I can’t guess ! A child could see 
through it. The stupidity of our civil authorities passes my 
understanding—it’s a miracle ! We have stringent orders 
not to take any initiative, or I would stop the Fraulein 
Camilla from uttering another note.” 

“ If you did that, I should be angry with you, General,” 
said Countess Anna. 

“ And I also think the Government cannot do wrong,” 
Countess Lena joined in. 

The General contented himself by saying: “Well, we 
shall see.” 

• Countess Lena talked to Captain Weisspriess in an under¬ 
tone, referring to what she called his dispute with Carlo 
Ammiani. The captain was extremely playful in re¬ 
joinders. 

“ You iron-man!” she exclaimed. 

“Man of steel would be the better phrase,” her sister 
whispered. 

“ It will be an assassination, if it happens.” 

“Ho officer can bear with an open insult, Lena.” 

“ I shall not sit and see harm done to my old playmate, 
Anna.” 

“ Beware of betraying yourself for one who detests you.” 

A grand duo between Montini and Yittoria silenced all 
converse. Camilla tells Camillo of her dream. He pledges 
his oath to discover her mother, if alive ; if dead, to' avenge 
her. Camilla says she believes her mother is in the dun¬ 
geons of Count Orso’s castle. The duo tasked Vittoria’s 
execution of florid passages ; it gave evidence of her sound 
artistic powers. 

“ I was a fool,” thought Antonio-Pericles; “ I flung my 
bouquet with the herd. I was a fool 1 I lost my head !” 
He tapped angrily at the little ink-flask in his coat- 
pocket. 

The first act, after scenes between false Camillo and 
]\Iichiella, ends with the marriage of Camillo and Camilla; 
—a quatuor composed of Montini, Yittoria, Irma, and 
L(;bruno. Michiella is in despair ; Count Orso is profoundly 


THE OPEEA OP CAMILLA. 


181 


sonorous witli paternity and devotion to the law. He has 
restored to Camilla a portion of her mother’s sequestrated 
estates. A portion of the remainder will he handed over to 
her when he has had experience of her husband’s good 
behaviour. The rest he considers legally his own by right 
of documents (Treaties), and by right of possession and his 
sword. Yonder castle he must keep. It is the key of all 
his other territories. Without it, his position will be 
insecure. (Allusion to the Austrian argument that the 
plains of Lombardy are the strategic defensive lines of the 
Alps.) 

Agostino, pursued by his terror of anti-climax, ran from 
the sight of Vittoria when she was called, after the fall of 
the curtain. He made his way to Rocco Ricci (who had 
given his bow to the public from his perch), and found the 
maestro drinking Asti to counteract his natural excitement. 
Rocco told Agostino that, up to the last moment, neither he 
nor any soul behind the scenes knew Vittoria would be able 
to appear, except that she had sent a note to him with a 
pledge to be in readiness for the call. Irma had come flying 
in late, em^aged, and in disorder, praying to take Camilla’s 
part; but Montini refused to act with the seconda donna as 
prima donna. They had commenced the opera in uncertainty 
whether it could go on beyond the situation where Camilla 
presents herself. “ I was prepared to throw up my baton,” 
said Rocco, “ and publicly to charge the Government with 
the rape of our prima donna. Irma I was ready to replace. 
I could have fllled that gap.” He spoke of Yittoria’s 
triumph. Agostino’s face darkened. “ Ha !” said he, “ pro¬ 
vided we don’t fall flat, like your Asti with the cork out. I 
should have preferred an enthusiasm a trifle more progres¬ 
sive. The notion of travelling backwards is upon me 
forcibly, after that tempest of acclamation.” 

“ Or do you think that you have put your best poetry in 
the first Act ?” Rocco suggested with malice. 

“Not a bit of it!” Agostino repudiated the idea very 
angrily, and pufled and pufled. Yet he said, “ I should not 
be lamenting if the opera were stopped at once.” 

“No!” cried Rocco; “let us have our one night. I 
bargain for that. Medole has played us false, but we go on. 
We are victims already, my Agostino.” 

“ But I do stipulate,” said Agostino, “ that my jewel is 


182 


VITTORIA. 


not to melt herself in the cup to-night. I must see her. As 
it is, she is inevitably down in the list for a week’s or a 
month’s incarceration.” 

Antonio-Pericles had this, in his case, singular piece of 
delicacy, that he refrained from the attempt to see Vittoria 
immediately after he had flung his magnificent bouquet of 
treasure at her feet. In his intoxication with the success 
which he had foreseen and cradled to its apogee, he was now 
reckless of any consequences. He felt ready to take patriotic 
Italy in his arms, provided that it would not succeed as Vit¬ 
toria had done, and on the spot. Her singing of the severe 
phrases of the opening chant, or hymn, had turned the man, 
and for a time had put a new heart in him. The consolation 
was his’also, that he had rewarded it the most splendidly^— 
as it were, in golden italics of praise ; so that her forgiveness 
of his disinterested endeavour to transplant her was certain, 
and perhaps her future implicit obedience or allegiance 
bought. Meeting Greneral Pierson, the latter rallied him. 

“ Why, my fine Pericles, your schem^to get this girl out 
of the way was capitally concerted. My only fear is that on 
another occasion the Government will take another view of 
it and you.” 

Pericles shrugged. “ The Gods, my dear General, decree. 
I did my best to lay a case before them ; that is all.” 

“ Ah, well! I am of opinion you will not lay many other 
cases before the Gods who rule in Milan.” 

“ I have helped themAo a good opera.” 

“ Ar8 you aware that tins opera consists entirely of political 
allusions ?” 

General Pierson spoke offensively, as the urbane Austrian 
military permitted themselves to do upon occasion when 
addressing the conquered or civilians. 

“To me,” returned Pericles, “an opera—it is music. I 
know no more.” , ' . ' 

- “You are responsible for it,” said the General, harshly. 
“ It was taken upon trust from you.” 

“ Brutal Austrians !” Pericles murmured. “ And you do 
not think much of her voice. General ?” 

“ Pretty fair, sir.” 

“ What wonder she does not care to open her throat to 
these swine!” thought the changed Greek. 

Vittoria’s door was shut to Agostino. Ho voice within 


THE OPERA OF CAMILLA. 


183 


gave answer. He tried the lock of the door, and departed, 
bhe sat in a stupor. It was harder for her to make a second 
appearance than it was to make the first, when the shameful 
suspicion cruelly attached to her had helped to balance her 
steps with rebellious pride; and more, the great collected 
wave of her ambitious years of girlhood had cast her forward 
to the spot, as in a last effort for consummation. JMow that 
she had won the public voice (love, her heart called it) her 
eyes looked inward ; she meditated upon what she had to do, 
and coughed nervously. She frightened herself with her 
coughing, and shivered at the prospect of again going forward 
in the great nakedness of stage-lights and thirsting eyes. 
And, moreover, she was not strengthened by the character of 
the music and the .poetry of the second Act:—a knowledge 
of its somewhat inferior quality may possibly have been at 
the root of Agostino’s dread of an anticlimax. The seconda 
donna had the chief part in it—notably an aria (Rocco had 
given it to her in compassion) that suited Irma’s pure shrieks 
and the tragic skeleton she could be. Yittoria knew how 
low she was sinking when she found her soul in the shallows 
*of a sort of jealousy of Irma. For a little space she lost all 
intimacy with herself; she looked at her face in the glass 
and swallowed water, thinking that she had strained a dream 
and confused her brain with it. The silence of her solitary 
room coming upon the blaze of light—the colour and clamour 
of the house, and^he strange remembrance of the recent 
impersonation of ^ Ideal character, smote her with the sense 
of her having fallen from a mighty eminence, and that she 
lay in the dust. All those incense-breathing flowers heaped 
on her table seemed poisonous,, and reproached her as a delu¬ 
sion. She sat crouching alone till her tire-women called; 
horrible talkative things ! her own familiar maid Giacinta 
being the worst to bear with. 

Now, Michiella, by making love to Leonardo, Camillo’s 
associate, discovers that Camillo is conspiring against her 
father. She utters to Leonardo very pleasant promises 
indeed, if he will betray his frieffd. -'Leonardo, a wavering 
baritone, complains that love should ask for any return save 
in the coin of the empire of love. He is seduced, and invokes 
a malediction upon his head should he accomplish what he 
has sworn to perform. Camilla reposes perfect confidence in 


184 


VITTOEIA. 


this wretch, and brings her more doubtful husband to be of 
her mind. 

Camillo and Camilla agree to wear the mask of a 
dissipated couple. They throw their mansion open ; 
dicing, betting, intriguing, revellings, maskings, commence. 
Michiella is courted ardently by Camillo ; Camilla trifles 
with Leonardo and with Count Orso alternately. Jealous 
again of Camilla, Michiella warns and threatens Leonardo; 
but she becomes Camillo’s dupe, partly from returning love, 
paitly from desire for vengeance on her rival. Camilla per¬ 
suades Orso to discard Michiella. The infatuated count 
waxes as the personification of portentous burlesque; he is 
having everything his own way. The acting throughout— 
owing to the real gravity of the vast basso Lebruno’s bur¬ 
lesque, and Yittoria’s archness—was that of high comedy 
with a lurid background. Vittoria showed an enchanting 
spirit of humour. She sang one bewitching barcarole that 
set the house in rocking motion. There was such melancholy 
in her heart that she cast herself into all the flippancy with 
abandonment. The Act was weak in too distinctly revealing 
the finger of the poetic political squib at a point here and 
there. The temptation to do it of an Agostino, who had no 
other outlet, had been irresistible, and he sat moaning over 
his artistic depravity, now that it stared him in the face. 
Applause scarcely consoled him, and it was with humiliation 
of mind that he acknowledged his debt to the music and the 
singers, and how little they owed to him. 

Now Camillo is pleased to receive the ardent passion of his 
wife, and the masking suits his taste, but it is the vice of his 
character that he cannot act to any degree subordinately in 
concert; he insists upon his own positive headship !—(allu¬ 
sion to an Italian weakness for sovereignties; it passed unob¬ 
served, and Agostino chuckled bitterly over his excess of 
subtlety). Camillo cannot leave the scheming to her. He 
pursues Michiella to subdue her with blandishments. Re¬ 
proaches cease upon her part. There is a duo between them. 
They exchange the silver keys, which express absolute inti¬ 
macy, and give mutual freedom of access. Camillo can now 
secrete his followers in the castle ; Michiella can enter 
Camilla’s blue-room, and ravage her caskets for treasonable 
correspondence. Artfully she bids him reflect on what she 
is forfeiting for him; and so helps him to plit aside the 


THE OPERA OP CAMILLA. 


185 


thought of that which he also may be imperilling. Irma’s 
shrill crescendos and octave-leaps, assisted by her peculiar 
attitudes of strangulation, came out well in this scene. The 
murmurs concerning the sour privileges to be granted by a 
Lazzeruola were inaudible. But there has been a witness to 
the stipulation. The ever-shifting baritone, from behind a 
pillar, has joined in with an aside phrase here and there. 
Leonardo discovers that his fealty to Camilla is reviving. 
He determines to watch over her. Camillo now tosses a 
perfumed handkerchief under his nose, and inhales the cox¬ 
combical incense of the idea that he will do all without 
Camilla’s aid, to surprise her; thereby teaching her to know 
him to be somewhat a hero. She has played her part so 
thoroughly that he can choose to fancy her a giddy person ; 
he remarks upon the frequent instances of girls who in their 
girlhood were wild dreamers becoming after marriage wild 
wives. His followers assemble that he may take advantage 
of the exchanged key of silver. He is moved to seek one 
embrace of Camilla before the conflict:—she is beautiful! 
There was never such beauty as hers! He goes to her in 
the fittest preparation for the pangs of jealousy. But he 
has not been foremost in practising the uses of silver keys. 
]\Iichiella, having first arranged with her father to be before 
Camillo’s doors at a certain hour with men-at-arms, is in 
Camilla’s private chamber, with her hand upon a pregnant 
box of ebony wood, when she is startled by a noise, and slips 
into concealment. Leonardo bursts through the casement 
window. Camilla then appears. Leonardo stretches the 
tips of his fingers out to her; on his knees confesses his 
guilt and warns her. Camillo comes in. Thrusting herself 
before him, Michiella points to the stricken couple—“ See ! 
it is to show you this that I am here.” Behold occasion for 
a grand quatuor ! 

While confessing his guilt to Camilla, Leonardo has ex¬ 
cused it by an emphatic delineation of Michiella’s magic 
sway over him. (Leonardo, in fact, is your small modern 
Italian Machiavelli, overmatched in cunning, for the reason 
that he is always at a last moment the victim of his poor bit 
of heart or honesty : he is devoid of the inspiration of great 
patriotic aims.) If Michiella (Austrian intrigue) has any 
love, it is for such a tool. She cannot afford to lose him. 
She pleads for him ; and, as Camilla is silent on his account, 


186 


VITTOEIA. 


tlie cynical magnanimity of Camillo is predisposed to spare 
a fangless snake. Mictiiella withdraws him from the naked 
sword to the back of the stage. The terrible repudiation 
scene ensues, in which Camillo casts olf his wife. If it was 
a puzzle to one Italian half of the audience, the other com¬ 
prehended it perfectly, and with rapture. It was thus that 
Young Italy had too often been treated by the compromis¬ 
ing, merely discontented, dallying aristocracy. Camilla cries 
to him, “ Have faith in me! have faith in me ! have faith in 
me !” That is the sole answer to his accusations, his threats 
of eternal loathing, and generally blustering sublimities. 
She cannot defend herself: she only knows her innocence. 
He is inexorable, being the guilty one of the two. Turning 
from him with crossed arms, Camilla sings :— 

“ Mother ! it is my fate that I should know 
Thy miseries, and in thy footprints go. 

Grief treads the starry places of the earth ; 

In thy long track I feel who gave me birth. 

I am alone ; a wife without a lord ; 

My home is with the stranger—home abhorr’d !— 

But that I trust to meet thy spirit there. 

Mother of Sorrows 1 joy thou canst not share : 

So let me wander in among the tomhs, 

Among the cypresses and the withered blooms. 

Thy soul is with dead suns : there let me be ; 

A silent thing that shares thy veil with thee.” 

The wonderful viol-like trembling of .the contralto tones 
thrilled through the house. It was the highest homage to 
Vittoria that no longer any shouts arose: nothing but a pro¬ 
longed murmur, as when one tells another a tale of deep 
emotion, and all exclamations, all ulterior thoughts, all 
gathered tenderness of sensibility, are reserved for the close, 
are seen heaping for the close, like waters above a dam. 
The flattery of beholding a great assembly of human crea¬ 
tures bound glittering in wizard subservience to the voice of 
one soul, belongs to the artist, and is the cantatrice’s glory, 
pre-eminent over w^hatever poor glory this world gives. She 
felt it, but she felt it as something apart. Within her was 
the struggle of Italy calling to Italy: Italy’s shame, her 
sadness, her tortures, her quenchless hope, and the view of 
Treedom, It sent her blood about her body in rebellious 
volumes. Once it completely strangled her notfis. She 
dropped tlie ball qf l^.er eflin in her throat j paused without 


THE OPERA OP CAMILLA. 


187 


ceremony, and recovered herself. Vittoria had too severe 
an artistic in^stinct to court reality; and as much as she 
could she from that moment corrected the underlinings of 
Agostino’s libretto. 

On the other hand, Irma fell into all his traps, and painted 
her Austrian heart with a prodigal waste of colour and frank 
energy• 

** Now Leonardo is my tool: 

Camilla is my slave : 

And she I hate goes forth to cool 
Her rage beyond the wave. 

Joy ! joy I 

Paid am I in full coin for my caressing ; 

I take, but give nought, ere the priestly blessing.’* 

A subtle distinction. She insists upon her reverence for 
the priestly (papistical) blessing, while she confides her 
determination to have it dispensed with in Camilla’s case. 
Irma’s known sympathies with the Austrian uniform seasoned 
the ludicrousness of many of the double-edged verses which 
she sang or declaimed in recitative. The irony of applaud¬ 
ing her vehemently was irresistible. 

Camilla is charged with conspiracy, and proved guilty by 
her own admission. 

The Act ends with the entry of Count Orso and his force; 
conspirators overawed; Camilla repudiated; Count Orso 
imperially just; Leonardo chagrined; Camillo pardoned; 
Michiella triumphant. Camillo sacrifices his wife for safety. 
He holds her estates; and therefore Count Orso, whose 
respect for law causes him to have a keen eye for matri¬ 
monial alliances, is now paternally willing, and even anxious 
to bestow Michiella upon him when the Pontifical divorce 
can be obtained; so that the long-coveted fruitful acres may 
be in the family. The chorus sings a song of praise to 
Hymen, the ‘ builder of gi’eat Houses.’ Camilla goes forth 
into exile. The word was not spoken, but the mention of 
‘ bread of strangers, strange faces, cold climes,’ said suffi¬ 
cient. 

“ It is a question whether we ought to sit still and see a 
firebrand flashed in our faces,” Greneral Pierson remarked as 
the curtain fell. He was talking to Major de Pyrmont out¬ 
side the Duchess of Graiitli’s box. Two General officers 
joined them, and presently Count Serabiglione, with his 


188 


VITTOEIA. 


courtliest semi-ironical smile, on whom they straightway 
turned their backs. The insult was happily unseen, and the 
count caressed his shaven chin and smiled himself onward. 
The point for the officers to decide was, whether they dared 
offend an enthusiastic house—the fiery core of the popula¬ 
tion of Milan—by putting a stop to the opera before worse 
should come. Their own views were entirely military; but 
they were paralyzed by the recent pseudo-liberalistic des¬ 
patches from Vienna; and agreed, with some malice in their 
shrugs, that the odium might as well be left on the shoulders 
of the bureau which had examined the libretto. In fact, they 
saw that there would be rank peril in attempting to arrest 
the course of things within the walls of the house. 

“ The temper of this people is changing oddly,” said 
General Pierson. Major de Pyrmont listened awhile to what 
they had to say, and returned to the duchess. Amalia 
wrote these lines to Laura :— 

“ If she sings that song she is to be seized on the wings of 
the stage. I order my carriage to be in readiness to take 
her whither she should have gone last night. Do you con¬ 
trive only her escape from the house. Georges de P. will 
aid you. I adore the naughty rebel!” 

Major de Pyrmont delivered the missive at Laura’s box. 
He went down to the duchess’s chasseur, and gave him cer¬ 
tain commands and money for a journey. Looking about, 
he beheld Wilfrid, who implored him to take his place for 
two minutes. De Pyrmont laughed. “ She is superb, my 
friend. Come up with me. I am going behind the scenes. 
The unfortunate impresario is a ruined man ; let us both 
condole with him. It is possible that he has children, and 
children like bread.” 

Wilfrid was linking his arm to De Pyrmont’s, when, with 
a vivid recollection of old times, he glanced at his uniform 
with Vittoria’s eyes. “ She would spit at me!” he muttered, 
and dropped behind. 

Up in her room Vittoria held council with Rocco, Agostino, 
and the impresario, Salvolo, who was partly their dupe. 
Salvolo had laid a freshly-written injunction from General 
Pierson before her, bidding him to exclude the chief solo 
parts from the Third Act, and to bring it speedily to a ter¬ 
mination. His case was, that he had been ready to forfeit 
much if a rising followed; but that simply to heard the 


THE OPEEA OP CAMILLA. 


189 


antliorities was madness. He stated his case hj no means 
as a pleader, although the impression made on him by the 
prima donna’s success caused his urgency to be civil. 

“ Strike out what you please,” said Vittoria. 

Agostino smote her with a forefinger. “ Rogue! you 
deserve an imperial crown. You have been educated for 
monarchy. You are ready enough to dispense with what 
you don’t care for, and what is not your own.” 

Much of the time was lost by Agostino’s dispute with 
Salvolo. They haggled and wrangled laughingly over this 
and that printed aria, but it was a deplorable deception nf 
the unhappy man; and with Vittoria’s stronger resolve to 
sing the incendiary song, the more necessary it was for her 
to have her soul clear of deceit. She said, “ Signor Salvolo, 
you have been very kind to me, and I would do nothing to 
hurt your interests. I suppose you must suffer for being an 
Italian, like the rest of us. The song I mean to sing is not 
written or printed. What is in the book cannot harm you, 
for the censorship has passed it; and surely I alone am 
responsible for singing what is not in the book—I and the 
maestro. He supports me. We have both taken precau¬ 
tions” (she smiled) “to secure our property. If you are 
despoiled, we will share with you. And believe, oh ! -in 
God’s name, believe that you will not suffer to no purpose !” 

Salvolo started from her in a horror of amazement. He 
declared that he had been miserably deceived and entrapped. 
He threatened to send the company to their homes forthwith. 
“Dare to!” said Agostino; and to judge by the temper of 
the house, it was only too certain that, if he did so. La 
Scala would be a wrecked tenement in the eye of morning. 
But Agostino backed his entreaty to her to abjure that song; 
Rocco gave way, and half shyly requested her to think of 
prudence. She remembered Laura, and Carlo, and her poor 
little frightened foreign mother. Her intense ideal concep¬ 
tion of her duty sank and danced within her brain as the 
pilot-star dances On the bows of a tossing vessel. All were 
against her, as the tempest is against the ship. Even light 
above (by which I would image that which she could appeal 
to pleading in behalf of the wisdom of her obstinate will) 
was dyed black in the sweeping obscuration; she failed to 
recollect a sentence that was to be said to vindicate her 
settled course. Her sole idea was her holding her country 


190 


VITTOEIA. 


by an unseen thread, and of the everlasting welfare of Italy 
bnng jeopardized if she relaxed her hold. Simple obstinacy 
of will sustained her. You mariners batten down the hatch¬ 
ways when the heavens are dark and seas are angry. 
Yittoria, with the same faith in her instinct, shut the 
avenues to her senses—would see nothing, hear nothing. The 
impresario’s figure of despair touched her later. Giacinta 
drove him forth in the act of smiting his forehead with both 
hands. She did the same for Agostino and Rocco, who were 
not demonstrative. 

They knew that by this time the agents of the Govern¬ 
ment were in all probability ransacking their rooms, and 
confiscating their goods. 

“ Is your piano hired ?” quoth the former. 

“hTo,” said the latter, “ are your slippers ?’* 

They went their separate ways, laughing. 


CHAPTER XXL 

THE THIRD ACT. 

The libretto of the Third Act was steeped in the sentiment 
of Young Italy. I wish that I could pipe to your mind’s 
hearing any notion of the fine music of Rocco Ricci, and 
touch you to feel the revelations which were in this new 
voice. Rocco and Yittoria gave the verses a life that cannot 
belong to them now; yet, as they contain much of the vital 
spirit of the revolt, they may assist you to some idea of the 
faith animating its heads, and may serve to justify this 
history. 

Rocco’s music in the opera of Camilla had been sprung 
from a fresh Italian well; neither the elegiac-melodious, nor 
the sensuous-lyrical, nor the joyous buffo ; it was severe as 
an old masterpiece, with veins of buoyant liveliness thread¬ 
ing it, and with sufficient distinctness nf melody to enrapture 
those who like to suck the sugar-plums of sound. He would 
indeed have favoured the public with more sweet things, but 
Yittoria, for whom the opera was composed, and who had 
been at his elbow, vras young, and stern in her devotion to 



THE THIRD ACT. 


191 


an ideal of classical music that should elcTate and never 
stoop to seduce or to flatter thoughtless hearers. Her taste 
had directed as her voice had inspired the opera. Her voice 
belonged to the order of the simply great voices, and was a 
royal voice among them. Pure without attenuai^ion, pas¬ 
sionate without contortion, when once heard it exacted 
absolute confidence. On this night her theme and her 
impersonation were adventitious introductions, but there 
were passages when her artistic pre-eminence and the sove¬ 
reign fulness and-fire of her singing struck a note of grateful 
remembered delight. This is what the great voice does for 
ns. It rarely astonishes onr ears. It illumines our souls, 
as yon see the lightning make the unintelligible craving 
darkness leap into long mountain ridges, and twisting vales, 
and spires of cities, and inner recesses of light within light, 
rose-like, toward a central core of violet heat. 

At the rising of the curtain the knights of the plains, 
Hudolfo, Romualdo, Arnoldo, and others, who were con¬ 
spiring to overthrow Count Orso at the time when Camillo’s 
folly ruined all, assemble to deplore Camilla’s banishment, 
and show, bereft of her, their helplessness and indecision. 
They utter contempt of Camillo, who is this day to be Pon- 
tiflcally divorced from his wife to espouse the detested 
Michiella. His taste is not admired. They pass oft. 
Camillo appears. He is, as he knows, little better than a 
pensioner in Count Orso’s household. He holds his lands 
on sufferance. His faculties are paralyzed. He is on the 
first smooth shoulder-slope of the cataract. He knows that 
not only was his jealousy of his wife groundless, but it was 
f*)rced by a spleenful pride. What is there to do F Nothing, 
save resignedly to prepare for his divorce from the con- 
spiratrix Camilla and espousals with Michiella. The cup is 
bitter, and his song is mournful. He does the rarest thing 
a man will do in such a predicament—he acknowledges that 
he is going to get his deserts. The faithfulness and purity 
of Camilla have struck his inner consciousness. He knows 
not where she may be. He has secretly sent messengers in 
all directions to seek her, and recover her, and obtain her 
pardon; in vain. It is as well, perhaps, that he should 
never see her more. Accursed, he has cast off his sweetest 
friend. The craven heart could never beat in unison with 
hers. 


192 


VITTOEIA. 


“ She is in the darkness; I am in the light. I aci a blot 
upon the light; she is light in the darkness.” 

Montini poured this out with so fine a sentiment that the 
impatience of the house for sight of its heroine was quieted. 
But Irma and Lebruno came forward barely under tolerance. 

“We ’might as well be thumping a tambourine,” said 
Lebruno, during a caress. Irma bit her underlip with 
mortification. Their notes fell flat as bullets against a 
wall. 

This circumstance aroused the ire of Antonio-Pericles 
against the libretto and revolutionists. “I perceive,” he 
said, grinning savagely, “ it has come to be a concert, no*t 
an opera; it is a musical harangue in the market-place. 
Illusion goes : it is politics here !” 

Carlo Ammiani was sitting with his mother and Luciano 
breathlessly awaiting the entrance of Vittoria. The inner 
box-door was rudely shaken : beneath it a slip of paper had 
been thrust. He read a warning to him to quit the house 
instantly. Luciano and his mother both councilled his 
departure. The detestable initials “ B. R.,” and the one ' 
word “ Sbirri,” revealed who had warned, and what was 
the danger. His friend’s advice and the commands of his 
mother failed to move him. “ When I have seen her safe; 
not before,” he said. 

Countess Ammiani addressed Luciano: “ This is a young 
man’s love for a woman.” 

“ The woman is worth it,” Luciano replied. 

“No woman is worth the sacrifice of a mother and of a 
relative.” 

“ Dearest countess,” said Luciano, “ look at the pit; it’s a 
cauldron. We shall get him out presently, have no fear: 
there will soon be hubbub enough to let Lucifer escape 
unseen. If nothing is done to-night, he and I will be off to 
the Lago di Garda to-morrow morning, and fish and shoot, 
and talk with Catullus.” 

The countess gazed on her son with sorrowful sternness. 
His eyes had taken that bright glazed look which is an 
indication of frozen brain and turbulent heart—madness 
that sane men enamoured can be struck by. She knew 
there was no appeal to it. 

A very dull continuous sound, like that of an angry 
swarm, or more like a rapid muffled thrumming of wires, 

I 


THE THIRD ACT. 


193 


was heard. The audience had caught view of a brown- 
coated soldier at one of the wings. The curious Croat had 
merely gratified a desire to have a glance at the semicircle 
of crowded heads; Jie withdrew his own, but not before he 
had awakened the wild beast in the throng. Yet a little 
while and the roar of the beast would have burst out. It 
was thought that Vittoria had been seized or interdicted 
from appearing. Conspirators—the knights of the plains— 
meet: Rudolfos, Romualdos, Arnoldos, ahd others,—so that 
you know Camilla is not idle. She comes on in the great 
scene which closes the opera. 

Tt is the banqueting hall of the castle. The Pontifical 
divorce is spread upon the table. Courtly friends, guards, 
and a choric bridal company, form a circle. 

“ I have obtained it,” says Count Orso: “ but at a cost.” 

Leonardo, wavering eternally, lets us know that it is 
weighted with a proviso: IF Camilla shall not present 
herself within a certain term, this being the last day of it. 
Camillo comes forward. Too late, he has perceived his 
faults and weakness. He has cast his beloved from his 
arms to clasp them on despair. The choric bridal company 
gives intervening strophes. Cavaliers enter. “ Look at 
them well,” says Leonardo. They are the knights of'the 
plains. “ They have come to mock me,” Camillo exclaims, 
and avoids them. 

Leonardo, Michiella, and Camillo now sing a trio that is 
tricuspidato, or a three-pointed manner of declaring their 
divergent sentiments in harmony. The fast-gathering cava¬ 
liers lend masculine character to the choric refrains at every 
interval. Leonardo plucks Michiella entreatingly by the 
arm. She spurns him. He has served her; she needs him 
no more; but she will recommend him in other quarters, 
and bids him to seek them. “ I will give thee a collar for 
thy neck, marked ‘ Faithful.* It is the utmost I can do for 
thy species.” Leonardo thinks that he is insulted, but there 
is a vestige of doubt in him still. “ She is so fair ! she dis¬ 
sembles so magnificently ever ! *’ She has previously told 
him that she is acting a part, as Camilla did. Irma had 
shed all her hair from a golden circlet about her temples, 
barbarian-wise. Some Hunnish grandeur pertained to her 
appearance, and partly excused the infatuated wretch who 

0 


194 


VITTOEIA. 


shivered at her disdain and exulted over her heautj and art¬ 
fulness. 

In the midst of the chorus there is one veiled figure and 
one voice distinguishable. This voice outlives the rest at 
every strophe, and contrives to add a supplemental anti- 
phonic phrase that recalls in turn the favourite melodies of 
the opera. Camillo hears it, but takes it as a delusion of 
impassioned memory and a mere theme for the recuiTing 
melodious utterance of his regrets. Michiella hears it. She 
chimes with the third notes of Camillo’s solo to inform us of 
her suspicions that they have a serpent among them. 
Leonardo hears it. The trio is formed. Count Orso, with¬ 
out hearing it, makes a quatuor by inviting the bridal couple 
to go through the necessary formalities. The chorus changes 
its measure to one of hymeneals. The unknown voice closes 
it ominously with three bars in the minor key. Michiella 
stalks close around the rank singers like an enrasfed daughter 
of Attila. Stopping in front of the veiled figure, she 
says— 

“ Why is it thou wearest the black veil at my nuptials ? ” 

“ Because my time of mourning is not yet ended,” 

“ Thou, standest the shadow in my happiness.” 

“ The bright sun will have its shadow.” 

“ 1 desire that all rejoice this day.” 

“ ]\Iy hour of rejoicing approaches.” 

“ A'V ilt thou unveil ? ” 

“ Dost thou ask to look the storm in the face ? ” 

“ Wilt thou unveil ? ” 

“ Art thou hungry for the lightning ? ” 

“ I bid thee unveil, woman! ” 

iMichiella’s ringing shriek of command produces no 
response. 

“ It is she! ” cries Michiella, from a contracted bosom; 
smiting it with clenched hands. 

“ Swift to the signatures. O rival! what bitterness hast 
thou come hither to taste.” 

Camilla sings aside : “If yet my husband loves me and is 
true.” 

Count Orso exclaims t “ Let trumpets sound for the com¬ 
mencement of the festivities. The lord of his country may 
slumber while his people dance and drink! ” 

Trumpets flourish. Witnesses are called about the table. 


THE THIRD ACT. 


19 ^ 


Camillo, pen in hand, prepares for the supreme act. 
Leonardo at one wing watches the eagerness of Michiella. 
The chorus chants to a muted measure of suspense^ while 
Camillo dips pen in ink. 

“ She is awaj from me: she scorns me: she is lost to me. 
Life without honour is the life of swine. Union without 
love is the yoke of savage beasts. 0 me miserable ! Can 
the heavens themselves plumb the depth of my degrada¬ 
tion ? ” 

Count Orso permits a half-tone of paternal severity to 
point his kindly hint that time is passing. When he was 
young, he says, in the broad and benevolently frisky manner, 
he would have signed ere the eye of the maiden twinkled her 
affirmative, or the goose had shed its quill. 

Camillo still trifles. Then he dashes the pen to earth. 

“Never! I have but one wife. Our marriage is irre¬ 
vocable. The dishonoured man is the everlasting outcast 
What are earthly possessions to me, if within myself shame 
faces me ? Let all go. Though I have lost Camilla, I will 
be worthy of her. Not a pen—no pen ; it is the sword that 
T must write with. Strike, O count I I am. here : I stand 
alone. By the edge of this sword, I swear that never deed 
of mine shall rob Camilla of her heritage; though I die the 
death, she shall not weep for a craven 1 ” 

The multitude break away from Camilla—veiled no more, 
but radiant; fresh as a star that issues through corrujDting 
vapours, and with her voice at a starry pitch in its clear 
ascendency:— 


Tear up the insufferable scroll I— 
O thou, my lover and my soul! 

It is the Sword that reunites ; 

The Pen that our perdition writes.” 


She is folded in her husband’s arms. 
Michiella fronts them, horrid of aspect 

“ Accurst divorced one ! dost thou dara 
To lie in shatneless tondness there ? 
Abandoned ! on thy lying brow 
Thy name shall be imprinted now.” 

0 2 


196 


VITTOEIA. 


Camilla parts from her husband’s embrace 

“My name is one I do not fear; 

’Tis one that thou would’st shrink to hear: 

Go, cool thy penitential fires, 

Thou creature, foul with base desires 1 ” 

Camillo {^facing Count Orso), 

‘‘ The choice is thine 1 ” 

Count Oeso {draws). 

“ The choice is made I** 

Cforus {narrowing its circle). 

Familiar is that naked blade. 

Of others, of himself, tht fate— 

How ^ift ’tis Provocation’s mate 1’* 

Michiella {torn with jealous rage), 

“ Yea ; I could smite her on the face. 

Father, first read the thing’s disgrace. 

I grudge them honourable death. 

Put poison in their latest breath 1” 

Oeso {his left arm extended). 

“ You twain are sundered: hear with awe 
The judgement of the Source of Law.” 

' Camilla {smiling confidently). 

“ Not such, when I was at the Source, 

It said to me ;—hut take thy course.” 

Oeso {astounded). 

“ Thither thy steps were bent ?” 

Michiella {spurning verbal controversy). 

“ She feigns ! 

A thousand swords are in my veins. 

Friends ! soldiers ! strike them down, the pair I** 

Camillo {on guards clasping his wife). 

“ ’Tis well! I cry, to all we share. 

Yea, life or death, ’tis well I ’tis well!” 

Michiella {stamj^s her foot). 

“ My heart’s a vessel tossed on hell 1’* 


THE THIRD ACT, 


197 


Leonardo ( aside ). 

** Not in glad nuptials ends the day.’* 
Orso (to Camilla ). 

What is thy purpose with us ?—say P 

Camilla ( lowly ). 

^ Unto my Father I have crossed 
For tidings of my Mother lost.’* 

Orso. 

Thy mother dead !” 

Camilla. 

“She lives I” 
Michiella. 

“ Thou liest! 

The tablets of the tomb defiest! 

The Fates denounce, the Furies chase 
The wretch who lies in Reason’s face.” 

Camilla. 

Fly, then ; for we are match’d to try 
Which is the idiot, thou or I.” 

Michiella. 

“ Graceless Camilla I” 

Orso. 

“ Senseless girl I 

I cherished thee a precious pearl, 

And almost owned thee child of mine.” 

Camilla. 

“ Thou kept’st me like a gem, to shine/-. 
Careless that I of blood am made ; 

No longer be the end delay’d. 

’Tis time to prove I have a heart— 

Forth from these walls of mine depart! 

The ghosts within them are disturb’d : 

Go forth, and let thy wrath be curb’d, 

For I am strong : Camillo’s trutli 
Has arm’d the visions of our youth. 

Our union by the Head Supreme 
Is blest: our severance was the dream. 

We who have drunk Of blood and tears, 
Knew nothing of a mortal’s fears. 

Life is as Death until the strife 
In our just cause makes Death as Life.* 


198 


VITTORIA. 


Orso. 

“ ’Tis madness ?’’ 


Leonardo. 

“ Is it madness ?” 


Camilla. 

“ Men! 

*Tis Reason, but beyqnd your ken. 

There lives a light that none can view 
Whose thoughts are brutish :—seen by few, 

The few have therefore light divine ; 

* Their visions are God’s legions 1—sign, 

I give you ; for we stand alone, 

And you are frozen to the bone. 

Your palsied hands refuse their swords. 

A sharper edge is in my words, 

A deadlier wound is in my cry. 

Yea, tho’ you slay us, do we die ? 

In forcing us to bear the worst. 

You made of us Immortals first. 

Away! and trouble not my sight.” 

Chorus of Cavaliers: Rudolfo, Romualdo, Arnoldo, and others, 

“ She moves us with an angel’s might. 

What if his host outnumber ours ! 

’Tis heaven that gives victorious powers.” 

{^They dram their steel. Orso, simulating gratitude for their devotion 
to him, addresses them as to pacify their friendly ardour 

Michiella to Leonardo {supplicating^ 

“ Plver my friend ! shall I appeal 
In vain to see thy flashing steel ?” 

Leonardo {finally resolved'). 

“ Traitress ! pray, rather, it may rest, 

Or it’s first home will be thy breast.” 

Chorus of Bridal Company. 

The flowers from bright Aurora’s head 
We pluck’d to strew a happy bed. 

Shall they be dipp’d in blood ere night ? 

Woe to the nuptials ! woe the sight I” 

Rudolfo, Romualdo, Arnoldo, and the others, advance 
toward Camillo. Michiella calls to them encouragingly that 


THE THIRD ACT. 


199 


it were well for the deed to be done by tbeir bands. They 
bid Camillo to direct tbeir lifted swords upon bis enemies. 
Leonardo joins them. Count Orso, after a burst of upbraid- 
in^s, accepts Camillo’s offer of peace, and gives bis bond to 
quit tbe castle. Micbiella, gazing savagely at Camilla, 
entreats ber for an utterance of ber triumphant scorn. She 
assures Camilla that she knows ber feelings accurately. 

“ Now you think that I am overwhelmed; that I shall 
have a restless night, and lie, after all my crying’s over, 
with my hair spread out on my pillow, on either side my 
face, like green moss of a withered waterfall: you think you 
will bestow a little serpent of a gift from my stolen treasures 
to comfort me. You will comfort me with a lock of Camillo’s 
hair, that I may have it on my breast to-night, and dream, 
and wail, and writhe, and curse the air I breathe, and 
clasp the abominable emptiness like a thousand Camillas. 
Speak !” 

The dagger is seen gleaming up Michiella’s wrist; she 
steps on in a bony triangle, faced for mischief: a savage 
Hunnish woman, with the hair of a Groddess—the figure of 
a cat taking to its forepaws. Close upon Camilla she towers 
in her whole height, and crying thrice, swift as the assassin 
trebles his blow, “ Speak,” to Camilla, who is fronting her 
mildly, she raises her arm, and the stilet flashes into 
Camilla’s bosom. 

“ Die then, and outrage me no more.” 

Camilla staggers to her husband. Camillo receives her 
falling. Micbiella, seized by Leonardo, presents a stiffened 
shape of vengeance with fierce white eyes and dagger aloft. 
There are many shouts, and there is silence. 


Camilla, supported by Camillo. 

** If this is death, it is not hard to bear. 

Your handkerchief drinks up my blood so fast 
It seems to love it. Threads of my own hair 
Are woven in it. ’Tis the one I cast 
That midnight from my window, when you stood 
Alone, and heaven seemed to love you so I 
I did not think to wet it with my blood 
When next I tossed it to my love below.” 


200 


VITTORIA, 


Camillo {cherishing her '). 

« Camilla, pity ! say you will not die. 

Your voice is like a soul lost in the sky,’* 

Camilla. 

“ I know not if my soul has flown ; I know 
My body is a weight I cannot raise : 

My voice between them issues, and I go 
Upon a journey of uncounted days. 
Forgetfuluess is like a closing sea ; 

But you are very bright above me still. 

My life I give as it w^as given to me : 

I enter on a darkness wide and chill.” 


Camillo. 

O noble heart! a million fires consume 
The hateful hand that sends you to your doom.** 

Camilla. 

There is an end to joy : there is no end 
To striving ; therefore ever let us strive 
In purity that shall the toil befriend, 

And keep our poor mortality alive. 

I hang upon the boundaries like light 
Along the hills when downward goes the dayj 
I feel the silent creeping up of night. 

For you, my husband, lies a flaming way.” 

Camillo. 

“ I lose your eyes : I lose your voice : ’tis fainfe. 

Ah, Christ I see the fallen eyelids of a saint.” 

Camilla. 

Our life is but a little holding, lent 
To do a mighty labour : we are one 
With heaven and the stars when it is spent 
To serve God’s aim : else die we with the sun.” 

She sinks. Camillo droops his head above her. 

The house was hushed as at a veritable death-scene. It 
was more like a cathedral service than an operatic pageant. 
Agostino had done his best to put the heart of the creed of 
his chief into these last verses. Rocco’s music floated them 
in solemn measures, and Vittoria had been careful to arti- 


THE THIED ACT. 201 

cnlate tlirouglioiit the sacred monotony so that their full 
meaning should be taken. 

In the printed book of the libretto a chorus of cavaliers, 
followed by one harmless verse of Camilla’s adieux to them, 
and to her husband and life, concluded the opera. 

“ Let her stop at that—it’s enough !—and she shall be 
nntouched,” said General Pierson to Antonio-Pericles. “ I 
have information, as you know, that an extremely impudent 
9 ong is coming.” 

The General saw Wilfrid hanging about the lobby, in 
flagrant disobedience to orders. Rebuking his nephew with 
a frown, he commanded the lieutenant to make his way round 
to the stage and see that the cui’tain was dropped according 
to the printed book. 

“ Off, mon Dieu ! off !” Pericles speeded him ; adding in 
English, “ Shall she taste prison-damp, zat voice is killed.” 

The chorus of cavaliers was a lamentation : the key-note 
being despair: ordinary libretto verses. 

Camilla’s eyes unclose. She struggles to be lifted, and, 
raised on Camillo’s arm, she sings as with the last pulsation 
of her voice, softly resonant in its rich contralto. She par¬ 
dons - Michiella. She tells Count Orso that when he has 
extinguished his appetite for dominion, he will enjoy an 
unknown pleasure in the friendship of his neighbours. 
Repeating that her mother lives, and will some day kneel 
by her daughter’s grave—not mournfully, but in beatitude— 
she utters her adieu to all. 

At the moment of her doing so, Montini whispered in 
Yittoria’s ear. She looked up and beheld the downward 
curl of the curtain. There was confusion at the wings: 
Croats were visible to the audience. Carlo Ammiani and 
Luciano Romara jumped on the stage; a dozen of the noble 
youths of Milan streamed across the boards to either wing, 
and caught the curtain descending. The whole house had 
risen insurgent with cries of “ Yittoria.” The curtain-ropes 
were in the hands of the Croats, but Carlo, Luciano, and 
their fellows, held the curtain aloft at arm’s length at each 
side of her. She was seen, and she sang, and the house 
listened. 

The Italians present, one and all, rose up reverently and 
murmured the refrain. Many of the aristocracy would, 
doubtless, have preferred that this public declaration of the 


202 


VITTOEIA. 


plain enigma sliould not have rung forth to caiTy them on 
the popular current; and some might have sympathized 
with the insane grin which distorted the features of Antonio- 
Pericles, when he beheld illusion wantonly destroyed, and 
the opera reduced to be a mere vehicle for a fulmination of 
politics. But the general enthusiasm was too tremendous 
to permit of individual protestations. To sit, when the nation 
was standing, was to be a German. N^or, indeed, was there 
an Italian in the house who would willingly have consented 
to see Vittoria silenced, now that she had chosen to defy the 
Tedeschi from the boards of La Scala. The fascination of 
her voice extended even over the German division of the 
audience. They, with the Italians, said : “ Hear her! hear 
her!” The curtain was agitated at the wings, but in the 
centre it was kept above Vittoria’s head by the uplifted arms 
of the twelve young men:— 

“ I cannot count the years, 

That you will drink, like me, 

The cup of blood and tears, 

Ere she to you appears :— 

Italia^ Italia shall be free P* 

So the great name was out, and its enemies had heard it. 

“ You dedicate your lives 
To her, and you will be 
The food on which she thrives, 

Till her great day arrives 
Italia^ Italia shall he free P* 

“ She asks you but for faith I 
Your faith in her takes she 
As draughts of heaven’s breath, 

Amid defeat and death :— 

Italia, Italia shall he free /” 

The prima donna was not acting exhaustion when sinking 
lower in Montini’s arms. Her bosom rose and sank quickly, 
and she gave the terminating verse:— 

“ I enter the black boat 
Upon the wide grey sea, 

Where all her set suns float; 

Thence hear my voice remote 
Italia, Italia shall he free /” 

The curtain dropped. 


WILFEID COMES EOEWARD. 


203 


CHAPTER XXIL 

WILFRID COMES FORWARD. 

An order for the immediate arrest of Yittoria was brought 
round to the stage at the fall of the curtain by Captain 
Weisspriess, and delivered by him on the stage to the officer 
commanding, a pothered lieutenant of Croats, whose first 
proceeding was dictated by the military instinct to get his 
men in line, and who was utterly devoid of any subsequent 
idea. The thunder of the house on the other side of the 
curtain was enough to disconcert a youngster such as he 
Avas; nor have the subalterns of Croat regiments a very 
signal reputation for efficiency in the Austrian service. 
Yittoria stood among her supporters apart; pale, and “only 
very thirsty,” as she told the enthusiastic youths who pressed 
near her, and implored her to haA^e no fear. Carlo was on 
her right hand; Luciano on her left. They kept her from 
going off to her room. Montini was despatched to fetch her 
maid Giacinta with cloak and hood for her mistress. The 
young lieutenant of Croats drew his sword, but hesitated. 
Weisspriess, Wilfrid, and Major de Pyrmont were at one 
wing, between the Italian gentlemen and the soldiery. The 
operatic company had fallen into the background, or stood 
crowding the side places of exit. Yittoria’s name was being 
shouted Avith that angry, sea-like, horrid monotony of itera¬ 
tion which is more suggestive of menacing impatience and 
the positiAm will of the people, then varied, sharp, imperative 
calls. The people had got the lion in their throats. One 
shriek from her would bring them, like a torrent, on the 
boards, as the officers well knew; and every second’s delay 
in executing the orders of the General added to the difficulty 
of their position. The lieutenant of Croats strode up to 
Weisspriess and Wilfrid, who were discussing apian of action 
vehemently ; while, amid hubbub and argument, De Pyrmont 
studied Yittoria’s features through his opera-glass, with an 
admirable simple languor. 

Wilfrid turned back to him, and De Pyrmont, without 
altering the level of his glass, said, “ She’s as cool as a lemon, 
ice. That girl Avill be a mother of heroes. To have volcanio 


204 


VITTORIA. 


fire and the mastery of her nerves at the same time, is some¬ 
thing prodigious. She is magnificent. Take a peep at h€»*. 
I suspect that the rascal at her right is seizing his occasion 
to plant a trifle or so in her memory—the animal I It’s just 
the moment, and he knows it.” 

De Pyrmont looked at AYilfrid’s face. 

“ Have I hit you anywhere accidentally ? ” he asked, for 
the face had grown dead-white. 

“ Be my friend, for heaven’s sake! ” was the choking 
answer. “Save her! Get her away! She is an old 
acquaintance of mine—of mine, in England. Do ; or I shall 
have to break my sword.” 

“ You know her ? and you don’t go over to her ? ” said De 
Pyrmont. 

“ I—yes, she knows me.” 

“ Then, why not present yourself ? ” 

“ Get her away. Talk Weisspriess down. He is for seiz¬ 
ing her at all hazards. It’s madness to provoke a conflict. 
Just listen to the house ! I may be broken, but save her I 
will. De Pyrmont, on my honour, I will stand by you for 
ever if you will help me to get her away.” 

“ To suggest my need in the hour of your own is not a bad 
notion,” said the cool Frenchman. “What plan have 
you ? ” ^ 

Wilfrid struck his forehead miserably. 

“ Stop Lieutenant Zettlisch. Don’t let him go up to her. 
Don’t-” 

De Pyrmont beheld in astonishment that a speechlessness 
such as affects condemned wretches in the supreme last 
minutes of existence had come upon the Englishman. 

“ I’m afraid yours is a bad case,” he said ; “ and the worst 
of it is, it’s just the case women have no compassion for. 
Here comes a parlementaire from the opposite camp. Let’s 
hear him.” 

It was Luciano Romara. He stood before them to request 
that the curtain should be raised. The officers debated 
together, and deemed it prudent to yield consent. 

Luciano stipulated further that the soldiers were to be 
withdrawn. 

“ On one wing, or on both wings ? ” said Captain Weiss¬ 
priess, twinkling eyes oblique. 

“ Out of the house,” said Luciano. 



WILFRID COMES FORWARD. 


205 


The officers laughed. 

“You must confess,” said De Pyrmont, affably, “that 
though the drum does issue command to the horse, it 
scarcely thinks of doing so after a rent in the skin has shown 
its emptiness. Can you suppose that we are likely to run 
when we see you empty-handed ? These things are matters 
of calculation.” 

“ It is for you to calculate correctly,” said Luciano. 

As he spoke, a first surge of the exasperated house broke 
upon the stage and smote the curtain, which burst into 
white zig-zags, as it were a breast stricken with panic. 

Giacinta came running in to her mistress, and cloaked and 
hooded her hurriedly. 

Enamoured, impassioned, Ammiani murmured in Vittoria’a 
ear : “ My own soul! ” 

She replied: “ My lover ! ” 

So their first love-speech was interchanged with Italian 
simplicity, and made a divine circle about them in the 
storm. 

Luciano returned to his party to inform them that they 
held the key of the emergency. 

“Stick fast,” he said. “I^one of you move. Whoever 
takes the first step takes the false step ; I see that.” 

“ We have no arms, Luciano.” 

“ We have the people behind us.” 

There was a fiercer tempest in the body of the house, and, 
on a sudden, silence. Men who had invaded the stage joined 
the Italian guard surrounding Vittoria, telling that the 
lights had been extinguished ; and then came the muffled 
uproar of universal confusion. Some were for handing her 
down into the orchestra, and getting her out through the 
general vomitorium, but Carlo and Luciano held her firmly 
by them. The theatre was a raging darkness; and there 
was barely a light on the stage. “ Santa Maria! ” cried 
Giacinta, “ how di’eadful that steel does look in the dark ! I 
wish our sweet boys would cry louder.” Her mistress, 
almost laughing, bade her keep close, and be still. “ Oh! 
this must be like being at sea,” the poor creature whined, 
stopping her ears and shutting her eyes. Vittoria was in a 
thick gathering of her defenders; she could just hear that a 
parley was going on between Luciano and the Austrians, 
Luciano made his way back to her. “ Quick,” he said; 


20G 


VITTOEIA. 


“nothing COWS a moh Tike darkness. One of these officers 
tells me he knows yon, and gives his word of honour—he’s 
an Englishman—to conduct you out: come.” 

Yittoria placed her hands in Carlo’s one instant. Luciano 
cleared a space for them. She heard a low English voice. 

“ You do not recognize me ? There is no time to lose. 
You had another name once, and I have had the honour to 
call you by it.” 

“ Are you an Austrian ?” she exclaimed, and Carlo felt 
that she was shrinking back. 

“ I am the Yv^ilfrid Pole whom you knew. You are en¬ 
trusted to my charge; I have sworn to conduct you to the 
doors in safety, whatever it may cost me.” 

Yittoria looked at him mournfully. Her eyes filled with 
tears. “ The night is spoiled for me!” she murmured. 

“ Emilia!” 

“ That is not my name.”' 

“ I know you by no other. Have mercy on me. I would 
do anything in the world to serve you.” 

Major de Pyrmont came up to him and touched his arm. 
He said briefly: “We shall have a collision, to a certainty, 
unless the people hear from one of her set that she is out of 
the house.” 

Wilfrid requested her to confide her hand to him. 

“ My hand is engaged,” she said. 

Bowing ceremoniously, Wilfrid passed on, and Yittoria, 
with Carlo and Luciano and her maid Giacinta, followed 
between files of bayonets through the dusky passages, and 
downstairs into the night air. 

Yittoria spoke in Carlo’s ear: “ I have been unkind to him. 
I had a great afl^ection for him in England.” 

“ Thank him; thank him,” said Carlo. 

She quitted her lover’s side and went up to Wilfrid with 
a shyly extended hand. A carriage was drawn up by the 
kerbstone ; the doors of it were open. She had barely made 
a word intelligible, when Major de Pyrmont pointed to some 
officers approaching. “ Get her out of the way while there’s 
time,” he said in French to Luciano. “ This is her carriage. 
Swiftly, gentlemen, or she’s lost.” 

Giacinta read his meaning by signs, and caught her mis¬ 
tress by the sleeve, using force. She and Major de Pyi*mont 
olaced Yittoria, bewildered, in the carriage ; De Pyrmont 


WILFRID COMES FORWARD. 


207 


shut the door, and signalled to the coachman. Vittoria 
thrust her head out for a last look at her lover, and beheld 
him with the arms of dark-clothed men upon him. La rfcala 
was pouring forth its occupants in struggling roaring shoals 
from every door. Her outcry returned to her deadened in 
the rapid rolling of the carriage across the lighted Piazza. 
Giacinta had to hold her down with all her might. Great 
clamour was for one moment heard by them, and then a 
rushing voicelessness. Giacinta screamed to the coachman 
till she was exhausted. Vittoria sank shuddering on the lap 
of her maid, hiding her face that she might plunge out of 
recollection. The lightnings shot across her brain, but wrote 
no legible thing; the scenes of the opera lost their outlines 
as in a white heat of fire. She tried to weep, and vainly 
asked her heart for tears, that this dry dreadful blind misery 
of mere sensation might be washed out of her, and leave her 
mind clear to grapple with evil; and then, as the lurid 
breaks come in a storm-driven night sky, she had the picture 
of her lover in the hands of enemies, and of Wilfrid in the 
w'hite uniform ; the torment of her living passion, the mockery 
of her passion by-gone. Recollection, when it came back, 
overwhelmed her; she swayed from recollection to oblivion, 
and was like a caged wild thing. Giacinta had to be as a 
mother with her. The poor trembling girl, who had begun 
to perceive that the carriage was bearing them to some un¬ 
known destination, tore open the bands of her corset and 
drew her mistress’s head against the full warmth of her 
bosom, rocked her, and moaned over her, mixing comfort 
and lamentation in one offering, and so contrived to draw 
the tears out from her,—a storm of tears; not fitfully hys¬ 
terical, but tears that poured a black veil over the eyeballs, 
and fell steadily streaming. Once subdued by the weakness, 
Vittoria’s nature melted; she shook piteously with weeping; 
she remembered Laura’s words, and thought of what she had 
done, in terror and remorse, and tried to ask if the people 
would be fighting now, but could not. Laura seemed to 
stand before her like a Fury stretching her finger at the 
dear brave men whom she-had hurled upon the bayonets 
and the guns. It was an uneudurable anguish. Giacinta 
was compelled to let her cry, and had to reflect upon their 
present situation unaided. They had passed the city-gates. 
Voices on the coachman’s box had given German pass-words. 


208 


VITTORIA. 


She would have screamed then had not the carria.^e seemed 
to her a sanctuary from such creatures as foreign soldiers, 
whitecoats; so she cowered on. They were in the starry 
open country, on the high-road between the vine-hung mul¬ 
berry trees. She held the precious head of her mistress, 
praying the saints that strength would soon come to her to 
talk of their plight, or chatter a little comfortingly at least; 
and but for the singular sweetness which it shot thrilling 
to her woman’s heart, she would have been fretted when 
Vittoria, after one long-drawn wavering sob, turned her 
lips to the bared warm breast, and put a little kiss upon it, 
and slept. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT. 

Vittoria slept on like an outwoim child, while Giacinta 
nodded over her, and started, and wondered what embowelled 
mountain they might be passing through, so cold was the 
air and thick the darkness ; and wondered more at the old 
face of dawn, which appeared to know nothing of her agita¬ 
tion. But morning was better than night, and she ceased 
counting over her sins forward and backward ; adding com¬ 
ments on them, excusing some and admitting the turpitude 
of others, with “ Oh ! I was naughty, padre mio! I ’was 
naughty —she huddled them all into one of memory’s spare 
sacks, and tied the neck of it, that they should keep safe 
for her father-confessor. At such times, after a tumult of 
the blood, women have tender delight in one another’s beauty. 
Giacinta doated on the marble cheek, upturned on her lap, 
with the black unbound locks slipping across it; the braid of 
the coronal of hair loosening; the chance flitting movement 
of the pearly little dimple that lay at the edge of the bow of 
the joined lips, like the cradling hollow of a dream. At 
whiles it would twitch; yet the dear eyelids continued sealed. 
Looking at shut eyelids when you love the eyes beneath, is 
more or less a teazing mystery that draws down your mouth 
to kiss them. Their lashes seem to answer you in some way 



FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT. 


209 


with infantine provocation; and fine eyelashes upon a face 
bent sideways, suggest a kind of internal smiling. Giacinta 
looked till she could bear it no longer; she kissed the cheek, 
and crooned over it, gladdened by a sense of jealous possession 
when she thought of the adored thing her mistress had been 
overnight. One of her hugs awoke Vittoria, who said, “ Shut 
my window, mother,” and slept again fast. Giacinta saw 
that they were nearer to the mountains. Mountain-shadows 
were thrown out, and long lank shadows of cypresses that 
climbed up reddish-yellow undulations, told of the sun coming. 
The sun threw a blaze of light into the carriage. He shone 
like a good friend, and helped Giacinta think, as she had 
already been disposed to imagine, that the machinery by 
which they had been caught out of Milan wms amicable magic 
after all, and not to be screamed at. The sound medicine of 
sleep and sunlight was restoring livelier colour to her mis¬ 
tress. Giacinta hushed her now, but Vittoria’s eyes opened, 
and settled on her, full of repose. 

“ What are you thinking about ?” she asked. 

“ Signorina, my own, I was thinking whether those people 
I see on the hill-sides are as fond of coffee as I am.” 

Vittoria sat up and tumbled questions out headlong, press¬ 
ing her eyes and gathering her senses ; she shook with a few 
convulsions, but shed no tears. It was rather the discomfort 
of their position than any ve«tige of alarm which prompted 
Giacinta to project her head and interrogate the coachman 
and chasseur. She drew back, saying, “ Holy Virgin ! they 
are Germans. We are to stop in half-an-hour.” With that 
she put her hands to use in arranging and smoothing Vit¬ 
toria’s hair and dress—the dress of Camilla —of which tri¬ 
umphant heroine Vittoria felt herself an odd little ghost 
now. She changed her seat that she might look back on 
Milan. A letter was spied fastened with a pin to one of the 
cushions. She opened it, and read in pencil writing :— 

“ Go quietly. You have done all that you could do for 
good or for ill. The cairiage will take you to a safe place, 
where you will soon see your friends and hear the news. 
Wait till you reach Meran. You will see a friend from 
England.' Avoid the lion’s jaw a second time. Here you 
compromise everybody. Submit, or your friends will take 
you for a mad girl. Be satisfied. It is an Austrian who 
rescues you. Think, yourself no longer appointed to put 

P 


210 


VITTORIA. 


match to powder. Drown yourself if a seeond frenzy comes, 
I feel I could still love your body if the obstinate soul were 
out of it. You know who it is that writes. I might sign 
‘ Michiella ’ to this: I have a sympathy with her anger at 
the provoking Camilla. Addio ! From La Scala.” 

The lines read as if Laura were uttering them. Wrapping 
her cloak across the silken opera garb, Vittoria leaned 
back passively until the carriage stopped at a village inn, 
where Giacinta made speedy arrangements to satisfy as far 
as possible her mistress’s queer predilecticm for bathing her 
whole person daily in cold water. The household service of 
the inn recovered from the effort to assist her sufficiently to 
produce hot coffee and sweet bread, and new green-streaked 
stracchino, the cheese of the district, which was the morning 
meal of the fugitives. Giacinta, who had never been so 
thirsty in her life, became intemperately refreshed, and was 
seized by the fatal desire to do something: to do what‘she 
could not tell; but chancing to see that her mistress had 
silken slippers on her feet, she protested loudly that stouter 
foot-gear should be obtained for her, and ran out to circulate 
inquiries concerning a shoemaker who might have a pair of 
country overshoes for sale. She returned to say that the 
coachman and his comrade, the German chasseur, were 
drinking and watering their horses, and were not going to 
start until after a rest of two hours, and that she proposed 
to walk to a small Bergamasc town within a couple of miles 
of the village, where the shoes could be obtained, and per¬ 
haps a stuff' to replace the silken dress. Receiving consent, 
Giacinta whispered, “ A man outside wishes to speak to you, 
signorina. Don’t be frightened. He pounced on me at the 
t;nd of the village, and had as little breath to speak as a boy 
in love. He was behind us all last night on the carriage. 
He mentioned you by name. He is quite commonly dressed, 
but he’s a gallant gentleman, and exactly like our signor 
Carlo. My dearest lady, he’ll be company for you while I 
am absent. May I beckon him to come into the room ?” 

Vittoria supposed at once that this was a smoothing of 
the way for the entrance of her lover and her joy. She 
stood up, letting all her strength go that he might the more 
justly take her and cherish her. But it was not Carlo who 
entered. So dead fell her broken hope that her face was 
repellent with the effort she made to support herself. He 


FIRST HOURS OP THE FLIGHT. 


211 


said, ** I address the siq-norina Vittoria. I am a relative of 
Countess Ammiani. My name is Angelo Guidascarpi. Last 
night I was evading the sbirri in this disguise by the private 
door of La Scala, from which I expected Carlo to come forth. 
I saw him seized in mistake for me. I jumped up on the 
empty box-seat behind your carriage. Before we entered 
the village I let myself down. If I am seen and recognized, 
I am lost, and great evil will befall Countess Ammiani and 
her son; but if they are unable to confront Carlo and me, 
my escape ensures his safety.” 

“ What can I do ?” said Vittoria. 

He replied, “ Shall I answer you by telling you what I 
have done ?” 

“ You need not, signore.” 

“Enough that I want to keep a sword fresh for my 
country. I am at your mercy, signorina; and I am without 
anxiety. I heard the chasseur saying at the door of La 
Scala that he had the night-pass for the city gates and 
orders for the Tyrol. Once in Tyrol I leap into Switzerland. 
I should have remained in Milan, but nothing will be done 
there yet, and quiet cities are not homes for me.” 

Vittoria began to admit the existence of his likeness to 
her lover, though it seemed to her a guilty weakness that 
she should see it. 

“ Will nothing be done in Milan ?” was her first eager 
question. 

“Nothing, signorina, or I should be there, and safe.” 

“ What, signore, do you require me to help you in ?” 

“ Say that I am your servant.” 

“ And take you with me ?” 

“ Such is my petition.” 

“ Is the case very urgent ?” 

“ Hardly more, as regards myself, than a sword lost to 
Italy if I am discovered. But, signorina, from what Countess 
Ammiani has told me, I believe that you will some day be 
my relative likewise. Therefore I appeal not only to a 
charitable lady, but to one of my own family.” 

Vittoria reddened. “ All that I can do I will do.” 

Angelo had to assure her that Carlo’s release was certain 
the moment his identity was established. She breathed 
gladly, saying, “ I wonder at it all very much. I do not 
know where they are carrying me, but I think I am in 


212 


VITTOEIA. 


friendly hands. I owe you a duty. You will permit me to 
call you Beppo till our journey ends.” 

They were attracted to the windows by a noise of a horse¬ 
man drawing rein under it, whose imperious shout for the 
innkeeper betrayed the soldier’s habit of exacting prompt 
obedience from civilians, though there was no military 
character in his attire. The innkeeper and his wife came 
out to the summons, and then both made way for the chas¬ 
seur in attendance on Yittoria. With this man the cavalier 
conversed. 

“Have you had food?” said Yittoria. “I have some 
money that will serve for both of ns three days. Go, and 
eat and drink. Pay for us both.” 

She gave him her purse. He received it with a grave 
servitorial bow, and retired. 

Soon after the chasseur brought up a message. Herr 
Johannes requested that he might have the honour of pre¬ 
senting his homage to her : it was imperative that he should 
see her. She nodded. Her first glance at Herr Johannes 
assured her of his being one of the officers whom she had 
seen on the stage last night, and she prepared to act her 
part. Herr Johannes desired her to recall to mind his 
introduction to her by the Signor Antonio-Pericles at the 
house of the maestro Bocco E-icci. “ It is true; pardon me,” 
said Yittoria. 

He informed her that she had surpassed herself at the 
opera; so much so that he and many other Germans had 
been completely conquered by her. Hearing, he said, that 
she was to be pursued, he took horse and galloped all night 
on the road toward Schloss Sonnenberg, whither, as it had 
been whispered to him, she was flying, in order to counsel 
her to lie perdu for a short space, and subsequently to con- 
duct her to the schloss of the amiable duchess. Yittoria 
thanked him, but stated humbly that she preferred to travel 
alone. He declared that it was impossible: that she was 
precious to the world of Art, and must on no account be 
allowed to run into peril. Yittoria tried to assert her will; 
she found it unstrung. She thought besides that this dis¬ 
guised officer, -with the ill-looking eyos running into one, 
might easily, since he had heard her, be a devotee of hei 
voice ; and it flattered her yet more to imagine him as a 
capture from the enemy—a vanquished subservient Austrian. 


FIEST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT. 


213 


She had seen him come on horseback; he had evidently 
followed her; and he knew what she now understood must 
be her destination. Moreover, Laura had underlined “ it is 
an Austrian who rescues you"' This man perchance was the 
Austrian. His precise manner of speech demanded an 
extreme repugnance, if it was to be resisted; Vittoria’s 
reliance upon her own natural fortitude was much too secure 
for her to encourage the physical revulsions which certain 
hard faces of men create in the hearts of young women. 

“ Was all quiet in Milan ?” she asked. 

“ Quiet as a pillow,” he said. 

“ And will continue to be ?” 

“Not a doubt of it.” 

“ Why is there not a doubt of it, signore ?” 

“You beat us Germans on one field. On the other you 
have no chance. But you must lose no time. The Croats 
are on your track. I have ordered out the carriage.” 

The mention of the Croats struck her fugitive senses with 
a panic. 

“ I must w^ait for my maid,” she said, attempting to 
deliberate. 

“ Ha ! you have a maid : of course you have ! Where is 
your maid ?” 

“ She ought to have returned by this time. If not, sho 
is on the road.” 

“ On the road ? Good; we will pick up the maid on the 
road. We have not a minute to spare. Lady, I am your 
obsequious servant. Hasten out, I beg of you. I was taught 
at my school that minutes are not to be wasted. Those 
Croats have been drinking and what not on the way, or 
they would have been here before this. You can’t rely on 
Itaiian innkeepers to conceal you.” 

“ Signore, are you a man of honour ?” 

“ Illustrious lady, I am.” 

She listened simply to the response without giving heed 
to the prodigality of gesture. The necessity for flight now 
that Milan was announced as lying quiet, had become her 
sole thought. Angelo was standing by the carriage. 

“What man is this said Herr Johannes frowning. 

“ He is my servant,” said Vittoria. 

“ My dear good lady, you told me your servant was a maid. 
This will never do. We can’t Lava him.” 


214 


VITTOEIA. 


“ Excuse me, signore, I never travel without him.” 

“Travel! This is not a case of travelling, but running; 
and when you run, if you are in earnest about it, .you must 
fling away your baggage and arms.” 

Herr Johannes tossed out his moustache to right and left, 
and stamped his foot. He insisted that the man should be 
left behind. 

“ Off, sir I back to Milan, or elsewhere,” he cried. 

“ Beppo, mount on the box,” said Yittoria. 

Her command was instantly obeyed. Herr Johannes 
looked her in the face. “ You are very decided, my dear 
lady.” He seemed to have lost his own decision, but hand¬ 
ing Yittoria in, he drew a long cigar from his breast-pocket, 
lit it,, and mounted beside the coachman. The chasseur had 
disappeared. 

Yittoria entreated that a general look-out should be kept 
for Giacinta. The road was straight up an ascent, and she 
had no fear that her maid would not be seen. Presently 
there was a view of the violet domes of a city. “ Is it 
Bergamo ?—is it Brescia ?” she longed to ask, thinking of 
her Bergamasc and Brescian friends, and of those two places 
famous for the bravery of their sons : one being especially 
dear to her, as the birthplace of a genius of melody, whose 
blood was in her veins. “ Did he look on these mulberry 
trees ?—did he look on these green-grassed valleys Y —did 
he hear these falling waters ?” she asked herself, and closed 
her spirit with reverential thoughts of him and with his 
music. She saw sadly that they were turning from the 
city. A little ball of paper was shot into her lap. She 
opened it and read: “ An officer of the cavalry.— Beppo.” 
She put her hand out of the window to signify that she was 
awake to the situation. Her anxiety, however, began to 
fret. Ho sight of Giacinta was to be had in any direction. 
Her mistress commenced chiding the absent garrulous 
creature, and did so until she pitied her, when she accused 
herself of cowardice, for she was incapable of calling out to 
the coachman to stop. The rapid motion subdued such 
energy as remained to her, and she willingly allowed her 
hurried feelings to rest on the faces of rocks impending over 
long ravines, and of perched old castles and white villas and 
sub-Alpine herds. She burst from the fascination as from a 
di'eam, but only to fall into it again, reproaching her weak- 


FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT. 


215 


ness, and saying, “ What a thing am I!” When she did 
make her voice heard by Herr Johannes and the coachman, 
she was nervous and ashamed, and met the equivocating 
pacification of the reply with an assent half-way, though she 
was far from comprehending the consolation she supposed 
that it was meant to convey. She put out her hand to com¬ 
municate with Beppo. Another ball of pencilled writing 
answered to it. She read : “ Keep watch on this Austrian. 
Your maid is two hours in the rear. Refuse to be separated 
from me. My life is at your service.— Beppo.” 

Vittoria made her final effort to get a resolve of some 
sort; ending it with a compassionate exclamation over poor 
Giacinta. The girl could soon find her way back to Milan. 
On the other hand, the farther from Milan, the less the 
danger to Carlo’s relative, in whom she now perceived a 
stronger likeness to her lover. She sank back in the car¬ 
riage and closed her eyes. Though she smiled at the vanity 
of forcing sleep in this way, sleep came. Her healthy frame 
seized its natural medicine to rebuild her after the fever 'of 
recent days. 

She slept till the rocks were purple, and rose-purple mists 
were in the valleys. The stopping of the carriage aroused 
her. They were at the threshold of a large wayside hos¬ 
telry, fronting a^^slope of forest and a plunging brook. 
Whitecoats in all attitudes leaned about the door; she 
beheld the inner court full of them. Herr Johannes was 
ready to hand her to the ground. He said : “ You have 
nothing to fear. These fellows are on the march to 
Cremona. Perhaps it will be better if you are served up in 
your chamber. You will be called early in the morning.” 

She thanked him, and felt grateful. “Beppo, look to 
yourself,” she said, and ran to her retirement. 

“ I fancy that’s about all that you are fit for,” Herr 
Johannes remarked, with his eyes on the impersonator of 
Beppo, who bore the scrutiny carelessly, and after seeing 
that Vittoria had left nothing on the carriage-seats, directed 
his steps to the kitchen, as became his functions. Herr 
Johannes beckoned to a Tyrolese maid-servant, of whom 
Beppo had asked his way. She gave her name as Katchen. 

“ Katchen, Katchen, my sweet chuck,” said Herr Johannes, 
“ here are ten florins for you, in silver, if you will get me the 


216 


VITTORIA. 


liandkercliief of that man: you have just stretched your 
finger out for him.” 

According to the common Austrian reckoning of them, 
Herr Johannes had adopted the right method for ensuring 
the devotion of the maidens of Tyrol. She responded with 
an amazed gulp of her mouth and a grimace of acquiescence. 
Ten florins in silver shortened the migratory term of the 
mountain girl by full three months. Herr Johannes asked 
her the hour when the officers in command had supper, and 
deferred his own meal till that time. Kiitchen set about 
earning her money. With any common Beppo it would 
have been easy enough—simple barter for a harmless kiss. 
But this Beppo appeared inaccessible; he was so courtly 
and so reserved; nor is a maiden of Tp’ol a particularly 
skilled seductress. The supper of the officers was smoking 
on the table when Herr Johannes presented himself among 
them, and very soon the inn was shaken with an uproar of 
greeting. Katchen found Beppo listening at the door of the 
salle. She clapped her hands upon him to di-ag him away. 

“What right have you to be leaning your head there?” 
she said, and threatened to make his proceedings known. 
Beppo had no jewel to give, little money to spare. He had 
just heard Herr Johannes welcomed among the ofiicers by a 
name that half paralyzed him. “ You shall have anything 
you ask of me if you will find me out in a couple of hours,” 
he said. Katchen nodded truce for that period, and saw her 
home in the Oberinnthal still nearer—twelve mountain goats 
and a cow her undisputed property. She found him out, 
though he had strayed through the court of the inn, and down 
a hanging garden to the borders of a torrent that drenched 
the air and sounded awfully in the dark ravine below. Ho 
embraced her very mildly. “ One scream and you go,” he 
said; she felt the saving hold of her feet plucked from her, 
with all the sinking horror, and bit her under lip, as if 
keeping in the scream with bare stitches. When he released 
her she was perfectly mastered. “ You do play tricks,” she 
said, and quaked. 

“ I play no tricks. Tell me at what hour these soldiers 
march.” 

“ At two in the morning.” 

“ Don’t be afraid, silly child: you’re safe if you obey me. 
At what time has our carriage been ordered ?” 


FIEST HOUES OF THE FLIGHT. 


217 


“At four.” 

“ Now swear to do this :—rouse my mistress at a quartei 
past two : bring her down to me.” 

“ Yes, yes,” said Kiitchen, eagerly: “ give me your hand¬ 
kerchief, and she will follow me. I do swear; that I do; by 
big St. Christopher! who’s painted on the walls of our house 
at home.” 

Beppo handed her sweet silver, which played a lively tune 
for her temporarily-vanished cow and goats. Peering at her 
features in the starlight, he let her take the handkerchief 
from his pocket. 

“ Oh ! what have you got in there ?” she said. 

He laid his finger across her mouth, bidding her return to 
the house. 

“ Dear heaven !” Kiitchen went in murmuring ; “ would 
I have gone out to that soft-looking young man if I had 
known he was a devil.” 

Angelo Guidascarpi was aware that an officer without 
responsibility never sleeps faster than when his brothers-in- 
arms have to be obedient to the re veil lee. At two in the 
morning the bugle rang out: many lighted cigars were 
flashing among the dark passages of the inn ; the whitecoats 
were disposed in marching order; hot coffee was hastily 
swallowed; the last stragglers from the stables, the out¬ 
houses, the court, and the straw beds under roofs of rock, 
had gathered to the main body. The march set forward. 
A pair of officers sent a shout up to the drowsy windows, 
“Good luck to you, Weisspriess!” Angelo descended from 
the concealment of the opposite trees, where he had stationed 
himself to watch the departure. The inn was like a sleeper 
who has turned over. He made Kiitchen bring him bread 
and slices of meat and a flask of wine, which things found a 
place in his pockets : and paying for his mistress and himself, 
he awaited Vittoria’s foot on the stairs. When Vittoria came 
she asked no questions, but said to Kiitchen, “ You may kiss 
me;” and Katchen began crying; she believed that they 
were lovers daring everything for love. 

“ You have a clear start of an hour and a half. Leave the 
high-road then, and turn left through the forest and ask for 
Bormio. If you reach Tyrol, and come to Silz, tell people that 
you know Kiitchen Giesslinger, and they will be kind to you.” 

So saying, she let them out into the black-eyed starlight. 


VITTOrJA. 


218 


CHAPTER XXiy. 

ADYENTUEES OP VITTORIA AND ANGELO. 

Nothing was distinguisliable for the flying* couple save the 
high-road winding under rock and forest, and here and there 
a coursing water in the depths of the ravines that showed 
like a vein in black marble. They walked swiftly, keeping 
brisk ears for sound of hoof or foot behind them. Angelo 
promised her that she should rest after the morning light 
had come; but she assured him that she could bear fatigue, 
and .her firm cheerfulness lent his heart vigour. At times 
they were hooded with the darkness, which came on them as 
if, as ^benighted children fancy, their faces were about to 
meet the shaggy breast of the forest. Rising up to lighter 
air, they had sight of distant twinklings: it might be city, 
or autumn weed, or fires of the woodmen, or beacon fires : 
they glimmered like eyelets to the mystery of the vast unseen 
land. Innumerable brooks went talking to the night; tor¬ 
rents in seasons of rain, childish voices now, with endless 
involutions of a song of three notes and a soid; of unnoted 
clanging chorus, as if a little one sang and would sing on 
through the thumping of a tambourine and bells. Vittoria 
had these fancies: Angelo had none. He walked like a 
hunted man whose life is at stake. 

“ If we reach a village soon we may get some conveyance,” 
he said. 

“ I would rather walk than drive,” said Vittoria; “ it 
keeps me from thinking.” 

“ Thepe is the dawn, signorina.” 

Vittoria frightened him by taking a seat upon a bench of 
rock; while it was still dark about them, she drew off 
Camilla’s silken shoes and stockings, and stood on bare feet. 

“ You fancied I was tired,” she said. “ No, I am thrifty; 
and I want to save as much of my finery as I can. I can go 
very well on naked feet. These shoes are no protection; 
they would be worn out in half a day, and spoilt for decent 
wearing in another hour.” 

The sight of fair feet upon hard earth troubled'Angelo; 
hp excused himself for calling her out to endure hardship ^ 


ADVENTUEES OP VITTOEIA AND ANGELO. 


219 


but she said, “I trust you entirely.” Slie looked up at the 
first thin wave of colour while walking. 

“You do not know me,” said he. 

“You are the Countess Ammiani’s nephew.” 

“ I have, as I had the honour to tell you yesterday, the 
blood of your lover in my veins.” 

“ Do not speak of him now, I pray,” said Vittoria; “I want 
my strength.” 

“ Signorina, the man we have left behind us is his enemy ; 
—mine. I would rather see you dead than alive in his 
hands. Do you fear death ? ” 

“ Sometimes ; when I am half awake,” she confessed. “ I 
dislike thinking of it.” 

He asked her curiously : “ Have you never seen it ? ” 

“ Death ? ” said she, and changed a shudder to a smile ; 
“I died last night.” 

Angelo smiled with her. “ I saw you die.” 

“ It seems a hundred years ago.” 

“ Or half-a-dozen minutes. The heart counts every¬ 
thing.” 

“ \Yas I very much liked by the people, Signor Angelo ?” 

“ They love you.” 

“ I have done them no good.” 

“ Every possible good. And now, mine is the duty to pro¬ 
tect you.” 

“ And yesterday we were strangers I Signor Angelo, you 
spoke of sbirri. There is no rising in Bologna. Why are 
they after you ? You look too gentle to give them cause.” 

“ Do I look gentle ? But what I carry is no burden. 
Who that saw you last night would know you for Camilla ? 
You will hear of my deeds, and judge. We shall soon have 
men upon the road ; you must be*hidden. See, there : there 
are our colours in the sky. Austria cannot wipe them out. 
Since I was a boy 1 have always slept in a bed facing East, 
to keep that truth before my eyes. Black and yellow drop 
to the earth : green, white and red mpunt to heaven. If 
more of my countrymen saAV these meanings !—but they are 
learning to. My tutor called them Germanisms. If so, I 
have stolen a jewel from my enemy.” 

Vittoria mentioned the Chief. 

“Yes,” said Angelo; “he has taught us to read God’s 
handwriting. I revere him. It’s odd ; I always fancy I 


220 


VITTORIA. 


hear his voice from a dnngeon, and seeing him looking at 
one light. He has a fault: he does not comprehend the 
feelings of a nobleman. Do you think he has made a convert 
of our Carlo in that ? Hever! High blood is ineradicable.” 

“ I am not of high blood,” said Vittoria. 

“ Countess Ammiani overlooks it. And besides, low blood 
may be elevated without the intervention of a miracle. You 
have a noble heart, signorina. It may be the will of God 
that you should perpetuate our race. All of us save Carlo 
Ammiani seem to be falling.” 

Vittoria bent her head, distressed by a broad beam of sun¬ 
light. The country undulating to the plain lay under them, 
the great Alps above, and much covert on all sides. They 
entered a forest pathway, following chance for safety. The 
dark leafage and low green roofing tasted sweeter to their 
senses than clear air and sky. Dark woods are homes to 
fugitives, and here there was soft footing, a surrounding 
gentleness,—grass, and moss with dead leaves peacefully flat 
on it. The birds w^ere not timorous, and when a lizard or a 
snake slipped away from her feet, it was amusing to Vit¬ 
toria and did not hurt her tenderness to see that they were 
feared. Threading on beneath the trees, they wound by a 
valley’s incline, where tumbled stones blocked the course of 
a green Tvater, and filled the lonely place with one onward 
voice. When the sun stood over the valley they sat beneath 
a chestnut tree in a semicircle of orange rock to eat the food 
which Angelo had procured at the inn. He poured out wine 
for her in the hollow of a stone, deep as an egg-shell, 
whereat she sipped, smiling at simple contrivances ; but no 
smile crossed the face of Angelo. He ate and drank to sus¬ 
tain his strength, as a weapon is sharpened ; and having 
done, he gatheied up what was left, and lay at her feet 
with his eyes fixed upon an old grey stone. She, too, sat 
brooding. The endless babble and noise of the water had 
hardened the sense of its being a life in that solitude. 
The floating of a hawk overhead scarce had the character 
of an animated thing. Angelo turned round to look at 
her, and looking upward as he lay, his sight was smitten 
by spots of blood upon one of her torn white feet, that was 
but half-nestled in the folds of her dress. Bending his head 
down like e bird beaking at prey, he kissed the foot passion¬ 
ately. Yittoria’s eyelids ran up; a chord seemed to snap 


ADVENTUEES OF VITTOEIA AND ANGELO. 


221 


witliin ter ears : she stole the shamed foot into concealment, 
and throbbed, but not fearfully, for Angelo’s forehead was 
on the earth. Clumps of grass, and sharp flint-dust stuck 
between his fists, which were thrust out stiff on either side 
of him. She heard him groan heavily. When he raised his 
face, it was white as madness. Her womanly nature did 
not shrink from caressing it with a touch of soothing hands. 

She chanced to say, “ I am your sister.” 

“ No, by God ! you are not my sister,” cried the young 
man. “ She died without a stain of blood; a lily from head 
to foot, and went into the vault so. Our mother will see 
that. She will kiss the girl in heaven and see that.” He 
rose, crying louder: “ Are there echoes here ?” But his 
voice beat against the rocks undoubled. 

She saw that a frenzy had seized him. He looked with 
eyes drained of human objects; standing square, with stiff 
half-dropped arms, and an intense melody of wretchedness 
in his voice. 

“ Rinaldo, Rinaldo !” he shouted : “ Clelia !—no answer 
from man or ghost. She is dead. We two said to her—• 
die ! and she died. Therefore she is silent, for the dead have 
not a word. Oh ! Milan, Milan ! accursed betraying city ! 
I should have found my work in you if you had kept faith. 
Now here am I, talking to tlie strangled throat of this place, 
and can get no answer. Where am I ? The world is 
hollow:—-the miserable shell ! They lied. Battle and 
slaughter they promised me, and enemies like ripe maize for 
the reaping-hook. I would have had them in thick to my 
hands. I would have washed my hands at night, and eaten 
and drunk and slept, and sung again to work in the morning. 
They promised me a sword and a sea to plunge it in, and our 
mother Italy to bless me. I would have toiled: I would 
have done good in my life. I would have bathed my soul in 
our colours. I would have had our flag about my body for a 
winding-sheet, and the fighting angels of God to unroll me. 
Now here am I, and my own pale mother trying at every 
turn to get in front of me. Have her away ! It’s a ghost, 
I know. She will be touching the strength out of me. She 
is not the mother I love and I serve. Go: cherish your 
daughter, you dead woman!” 

Ancrelo reeled. “ A spot of blood has sent me mad,” he 
said, and caught for a darkness to cross his sight, and fell 
and lay flat. 


222 


VITTOPtlA. 


Vittoria looked around her; her courage was needed in 
that long silence. 

She adopted his language: “ Our mother Italy is waiting 
for us. We must travel on, and not be weary. Angelo, my 
friend, lend me your help over these stones.” 

He rose quietly. She laid her elbow on his hand; thus 
supported she left a place that seemed to shudder. All the 
heavy day they walked almost silently ; she not daring to 
probe his anguish with a question; and he calm and vacant 
as the hour following thunder. But, of her safety by his 
side she had no longer a doubt. She let him gather weeds 
and grasses, and bind thenf across her feet, and perform 
friendly services, sure that nothing earthly could cause such 
a mental tempest to recur. The considerate observation 
which at all seasons belongs to true courage told her that it 
was not madness afflicting Angelo. ' 

Hear nightfall they came upon a forester’s hut, where 
they were welcomed by an old man and a little girl, who 
gave them milk and black bread, and straw to rest on. 
Angelo slept in the outer air. When Vittoria awoke she 
had the fancy that she had taken one long dive downward 
in a well, and on touching the bottom found her head above 
the surface. While her surprise was wearing olf, she beheld 
the woodman’s little girl at her feet holding up one end 
of her cloak, and peeping underneath, overcome by amaze- 
ijient at the flashing richness of the dress of the heroine 
Camilla. Entering into the state of her mind spontaneously, 
Vittoria sought to induce the child to kiss her; but quite 
vainly. The child’s reverence for the dress allowed her only 
to be within reach of the hem of it, so as to delight her 
curiosity. Vittoria smiled when, as she sat up, the child 
fell back against the wall; and as she rose to her feet, the 
child scampered from the room. “ My poor Camilla ! you 
can charm somebody, yet,” she said, limping; her visage 
like a broken water with the pain of her feet. “ If the bell 
rings for Camilla now, what sort oF an entry will she make ?” 
Vittoria treated her physical weakness and ailments with 
this spirit of humour. “ They may say that Michiella has 
bewitched you, my Camilla. 1 think your voice would 
sound as if it were dragging its feet after it—just as a stork 
•flies. 0 my Camilla! don’t I wish I could do the same, and 
be ungraceful and at ease! A moan is married to every note 


ADVENTURES OP VITTORIA AND ANGELO. 


223 


of your treble, my Camilla, like December and May. Keep 
me from shrieking!” 

The pangs shooting from her feet were scarce bearable, 
but the repression of them helped her to meet Angelo with 
a freer mind than, after the interval of separation, she would 
liave had. The old woodman was cooking a queer composi¬ 
tion of flour and milk sprinkled with salt for them. Angelo 
cut a stout cloth to encase each of her feet, and bound them 
in it. He was more cheerful than she had ever seen him, 
and now first spoke of their destination. His design was to 
conduct her near to Bormio, there to engage a couple of men 
in her service who would accompany her to Meran, by the 
Val di Sole, while he crossed the Stelvio alone, and turning 
leftward in the Tyrolese valley, tried the passage into Switz¬ 
erland. Bormio, if, when they quitted the forest, a con¬ 
veyance could be obtained, was no more than a short day’s 
distance, according to the old woodman’s directions. Vittoria 
induced the little girl to sit upon her knee, and sang to her, 
but greatly unspirited the charm of her dress. The sun was 
rising as they bade adieu to the hut. 

About mid-day they quitted the shelter of forest trees 
and stood on broken ground, without a path to guide them. 
Vittoria did her best to laugh at her mishaps in walking, 
and compared herself to a Capuchin pilgi-im; but she was 
unused to going bareheaded and shoeless, and though she 
held on bravely, the strong beams of the sun and the stony 
ways warped her strength. She had to check fancies drawn 
from Arabian tales, concerning the help sometimes given by 
genii of the air and enchanted birds, that were so incessant 
and vivid that she found herself sulking at the loneliness 
and helplessness of the visible sky, and feared that her brain 
was losing its hold of things. Angelo led her to a half- 
shaded hollow, where they finished the remainder of yester¬ 
day’s meat and wine. She set her eyes upon a gold-green 
lizard by a stone and slept. 

“ The quantity of sleep I require is unmeasured,” she said, 
a minute afterwards, according to her reckoning of time, 
and expected to see the lizard still by the stone. Angelo 
was near her; the sky was full of colours, and the earth of 
shadows. 

“ Another day gone !” she exclaimed in wonderment, 
thinking that the days of human creatures had grown to be 


224 


VITTORIA. 


r.s rapid and (save toward the one end) as meaningless as 
the gaspings of a fish on dry land. He told her that he had 
explored the country as far as he had dared to stray from 
her. He had seen no habitation along the heights. The 
Yale was too distant for strangers to reach it before night¬ 
fall. “ We can make a little way on,” said Yittoria, and the 
trouble of walking began again. He entreated her more 
til an once to have no fear. “ What can I fear ?” she asked. 
His voice sank penitently: “ You can rely on me fully when 
there is anything to do for you.” 

“ I am sure of that,” she replied, knowing his allusion to 
be to his frenzy of yesterday. In truth, no woman could 
have had a gentler companion. 

On the topmost ridge of the heights, looking over an 
interminable gulf of darkness they saw the lights of the 
vale. “ A bird might find his perch there, but I think there 
is no chance for us,” said Yittoria. “ The moment we move 
forward to them the lights will fly back. It is their way of 
behaving.” 

Angelo glanced round desperately. Farther on along the 
ridge his eye caught sight of a low smouldering fire. When 
he reached it he had a great disappointment. A fire in the 
darkness gives hopes that men will be at hand. Here there 
was not any human society. The fire crouched on its ashes. 
It was on a little circular eminence of mossed rock ; black 
sticks, and brushwood, and dry fern, and split logs, pitchy 
to the touch, lay about; in the centre of them the fire coiled 
sullenly among its ashes, with a long eye like a serpent’s. 

“ Could you sleep here ?” said Angelo. 

“ Anywhere !” Yittoria sighed with droll dolefulness. 

“ I can promise to keep you warm, signorina.” 

“ I will not ask for more till to-morrow, my friend.” 

She laid herself down sideways, curling up her feet, with 
her cheek on the palm of her hand. 

Angelo knelt and coaxed the fire, whose appetite, like that 
which is said to be ours, was fed by eating, for after the red 
jaAvs had taken half-a-dozen sticks, it sang out for more, and 
sent up flame leaping after flame and thick smoke. Yittoria 
Avatched the scene through a thin division of her eyelids; 
the fire, the black abyss of country, the stars, and the sen¬ 
tinel figure. She dozed on the edge of sleep, unable to yield 
herself to it wholly. She believed that she was dreaming 


ADVENTUEES OP VITTOEIA AND ANGELO. 


225 


when by-and-by many voices filled Jber ears. Tbe fire was 
sounding like an angry sea, and tbe voices were like the 
shore, more intelligible, but confused in shriller clamour. 
She was awakened by Angelo, who knelt on one knee and 
took her outlying hand ; then she saw that men surrounded 
them, some of whom were hurling the lighted logs about, 
some trampling down the outer rim of flames. They looked 
devilish to a first awakening glance. He told her that the 
men were friendly; they were good Italians. This had been 
the beacon arranged for the night of the Fifteenth, when no 
run of signals was seen from Milan ; and yesterday after¬ 
noon it had been in mockery partially consumed. “We 
have aroused the country, signorina, and brought these poor 
fellows out of their beds. They supposed that Milan must 
be up and at work. I have explained everything to them.” 

Vittoria had rather to receive their excuses than to proffer 
ber own. They were mostly youths dressed like the better 
class of peasantry. They laughed at the incident, stating 
how glad they would have been to behold the heights all 
across the lakes ablaze and promising action for the morrow. 
One square-shouldered fellow raised her lightly from the 
ground. She felt lerself to be a creature for whom circum¬ 
stance was busily plotting, so that it was useless to exert her 
mind in thought. The long procession sank down the dark¬ 
ness, leaving the low red fire to die out behind them. 

Next morning she awoke in a warm bed, possessed by 
odd images of flames that stood up like crowing cocks, and 
cowered like hens above the brood. She vas in the house 
of one of their new friends, and she could hear Angelo talk¬ 
ing in the adjoining room. A conveyance was ready to take 
her on to Bormio. A woman came to her to tell her this, 
appearing to have a dull desire to get her gone. She was a 
draggled woman, with a face of slothful anguish, like one 
of the inner spectres of a guilty man. She said that her 
husband was willing to drive the lady to Bormio for a sum 
that was to be paid at once into his wife’s hand; and little 
enough it was which poor persons could ever look for from 
your patriots and disturbers who seduced orderly men from 
their labour, and made widows and ruined households. This 
was a new Italian language to Vittoria, and when the woman 
went on giving instances of households ruined by a husband’s 
vile infatuation about his country, she did not attempt to 

Q 


226 


VITTOPtlA. 


defend the reckless lord, but dressed quickly that she might 
leave the house as soon as she could. Her stock of money 
barely satisfied the woman’s demand. The woman seized it, 
and secreted it in her girdle. When tiiey had passed into 
the sitting-room, her husband, who was sitting conversing 
with Angelo, stretched out his hand and knocked the 
girdle. 

“ That’s our trick,” he said. “ I guessed so. Fund up, 
our little Maria of the dirty fingers’-ends ! We accept no 
money from true patriots. Grub in other ground, my 
dear !” 

The woman stretched her throat avu'y, and set up a howl 
like a dog; but her claws came out when he seized her. 

“ Would you. disgrace me, old fowl?” 

“ Lorenzo, may you rot like a pumpkin !” 

The connubial reciprocities were sharp until the money 
lay on the table, when the woman began whining so miser¬ 
ably that Vittoria’s sensitive nerves danced on her face, and 
at her authoritative interposition, Lorenzo very reluctantly 
permitted his wife to take what he chose to reckon a fair 
portion of the money, and also of his contempt. She seemed 
to be licking the money up, she bent over it so greedily. 

“ Poor wretch !” he observed ; “ she was born on a hired 
bed.” 

Vittoria felt that the recollection of this woman would 
haunt her. It was inconceivable to her that a handsome 
young man like Lorenzo should ever have wedded the 
unsweet creature, who was like a crawling image of decay; 
but he, as if to account for his taste, said that they had been 
of a common age once, when he married her ; now she had 
grown old. He repeated that she “ was born on a hired 
bed.” They saw nothing further of her. 

Vittoria’s desire was to get to Meran speedily, that she 
might see her friends, and have tidings of her lover and the 
city. Those baffled beacon-flames on the heights had 
become an irritating indicative vision : she thirsted for the 
history. Lorenzo offered to conduct her over the Tonale 
Pass into the Val di Sole, or np the Val Furva, by the pass 
of the Corno dei Tre Signori, into the Val del Monte to Pejo, 
thence by Cles, or by Bolzano, to Meran. But she required 
shoeing and refitting; and for other reasons also, she deter¬ 
mine! to go on to Bormio. She supposed that Angelo had 


ACEOSS THE MOUNTAINS. 


227 


little money, and that in a place sncli as Bormio sounded to 
her ears she might possibly obtain the change for the great 
money-order which the triumph of her singing had won 
from Antonio-Pericles. In spite of Angelo’s appeals to her 
to hurry on to the end of her journey without tempting 
chance by a single pause, she resolved to go to Bormio. 
Lorenzo privately assured her that there were bankers in 
Bormio. Many bankers, he said, came there from Milan, 
and that fact she thought sufficient for her purpose. The 
wanderers parted regretfully. A little chapel, on a hillock 
off the road, shaded by chestnuts, was pointed out to Lorenzo 
where to bring a letter for Angelo. Vittoria begged Angelo 
to wait till he heard from lier; and then, with mutual 
wavings of hands, she was driven out of his sight. 


\ 


CHAPTER XXV. 

ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. 

After parting from Vittoria, Angelo made his way to an 
inn, where he ate and drank like a man of the fields, and 
slept with the power of one from noon till after morning. 
The innkeeper came up to his room, and, finding him awake, 
asked him if he was disposed to take a second holiday in 
bed. Angelo jumped up; as he did so, his stiletto slipped 
from under his pillow and flashed. 

“ That’s a pretty bit of steel,” said the innkeeper, but 
could not get a word out of him. It was plain to Angelo 
that this fellow had suspicions. Angelo had been careful to 
tie up his clothes in a bundle; there was no ting for the 
innkeeper to see, save a young man in bed, who had a 
terrible weapon near his hand, and a look in his eyes of 
wary indolence that counselled prudent dealings. He went 
out, and returned a second and a third time, talking more 
and more confusedly and fretfully; but as he was again 
going to leave, “Xo, no,” said Angelo, determined to give 
him a lesson, “ I have taken a liking to your company. 
Here, come here ; I will show you a trick. I learnt it from 
the Servians when I was three feet high. Look; I lie quite 



228 


VITTOBIA. 


still, you observe. Try to get on the other side of that door 
and the point of this blade shall scratch you through it.” 
Angelo laid the blue stilet up his wrist, and slightly curled 
his arm. “ Try,” he repeated, but the innkeeper had 
stopped short in his movement to the door. “ Well, then, 
stay where you are,” said Angelo, “ and look; I’ll be as good 
as my word. There’s the point I shall strike.” With that 
he gave the peculiar Servian jerk of the muscles, from the 
wuast up to the arm, and the blade quivered on the mark. 
The innkeeper fell back in admiring horror. “ Now fetch it 
to me,” said Angelo, putting both arms carelessly under his 
head. The innkeeper tugged at the blade. “ Illustrious 
signore, I am afraid of breaking it,” he almost whimpered; 
“ it seems alive, does it not ?” 

“ Like a haw'k on a small bird,” said Angelo ; “ that’s the 
beauty of those blades. They kill, and put you to as little 
pain as a shot; and it’s better than a shot in your breast— 
there’s something to show for it. Send up your wdfe or your 
daughter to take orders about my breakfast. It’s the break¬ 
fast of five mountaineers; and don’t ‘Illustrious signore’ mo, 
sir, either in my hearing or out of it. Leave the knife stick- 

The innkeeper sidled out with a dumb salute. “ I can 
count on his discretion for a couple of hours,” Angelo said 
to himself. He knew the effect of an exhibition of physical 
dexterity and strength upon a coward. The landlord’s 
daughter came and received his orders for breakfast. Angelo 
inquired whether they had been visited by Germans of late. 
The girl told him that a German chasseur with a couple ol 
soldiers had called them up last night. 

“ Wouldn’t it have been a pity if they had dragged me out 
and shot me ?” said Angelo. 

“ But they were after a lady,” she explained ; “ they have 
gone on to Bormio, and expect to catch her there or in the 
mountains.” 

“ Better there than in the mountains, my dear; don’t you 
think so ?” 

The girl said that she would not like to meet those fellow’’s 
among the mountains. 

“ Suppose you were among the mountains, and those 
fellows came up with you; wouldn’t you clap your hands to 


ACEOSS THE MOUNTAINS. 229 

see me jumping down right in front of you all P” said 
Angelo. 

“ Yes, I should,” she admitted. “ What is one man 
though !” 

“Something, if he feeds like five. Quick! I must eat. 
Have you a lover ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Fancy you are waiting on him.” 

“ He’s only a middling lover, signore. He lives at Cles, 
over Val Pejo, in Val di ISTon, a long way, and courts me 
twice a year, when he comes over to do carpentering. He 
cuts very pretty Madonnas. He is a German.” 

“ Ha ! you kneel to the Madonna, and give your lips to a 
German ? Go.” 

“ But I don’t like him much, signore ; it’s my father who 
wishes me to have him; he can make money.” 

Angelo motioned to her to he gone, saying to himself, “That 
father of hers would betray the saints for a handful of 
florins.” 

He dressed, and wrenched his knife from the door. Hear¬ 
ing the clatter of a horse at the porch, he stopped as he was 
descending the stairs. A German voice said, “ Sure enough, 
my jolly landlord, she’s there, in Worms—your Bormio. 
Found her at the big hotel: spoke not a syllable; stole 
away, stole away. One chopin of wine 1 I’m off on four legs 
to the captain. Those lads who are after her by Roveredo 
and Trent have bad noses. ‘ Poor nose—empty belly.’ Says 
the captain, ‘ I stick at the point of the cross-roads.’ Says I, 

‘ Herr Captain, I’m back to you first of the lot.’ My busi¬ 
ness is to find the runaway lady—pretty Fraulein 1 pretty 
Fraulein 1 lai-a'i ! There’s money on her servant, too ; he’s 
a disguised Excellency—a handsome boy; but he has cut 
himself loose, and he go hang. Two birds for the pride of 
the thing; one for satisfaction—I’m satisfied. I’ve killed 
chamois in my time. Jacob, I am; Baumwalder, I am; 
Feckelwitz, likewise; and the very devil for following a 
track. Ach 1 the wine is good. You know the song ?—»• 

* He who drinks wine, he may cry with a will, 

Fortune is mine, may she stick to me still.’ 

I give it you in German—the language of song I my own, 
my native ! la%~a% — lauai — la-la-lai-al- WiB / 



230 


VITTORIA. 


• While stars still sit 
On mountain tops, 

I take my gun, 

Kiss little one 

On mother’s breast. 

Ax-iu-e 1 

My pipe is lit, 

I climb the slopes, 

I meet the dawn — 

A little one 

On mother’s breast. 

Ai-aU: ta-ta-tat: hi-Ku-tu-i P 

Anotlier cliopin, my jolly landlord. What’s that you’re 
mumbling ? About the servant of my runaway young lady ? 
He go hang ! What?-” 

Angelo struck his foot heavily on the stairs; the inn¬ 
keeper coughed and ran back, bowing to his guest. The 
chasseur cried, “ I’ll drink farther on—wine between gaps !” 
A coin chinked on the steps in accompaniment to the 
chasseur’s departing gallop. “ Beast of a Tedesco,” the 
, landlord exclaimed as he picked up the money ; “ they do 
the reckoning—not we. If I had served him with the 
worth of this, I should have had the bottle at my head. 
What a country ours is ! We’re ridden over, ridden over !” 
Angelo compelled the landlord to rit with him while he ate like 
five mountaineers. He left mere bones on the table. “ It’s won¬ 
derful,” said the innkeeper; “you can’t know what fear is.” 

“ I think I don’t,” Angelo replied; “ you do ; cowards 
have to serve every party in turn. Up, and follow at my 
heels till I dismiss you. You know the pass into the Val 
Pejo and the Val di Sole.” The innkeeper stood entrenched 
behind a sturdy negative. Angelo eased him to submission 
by telling him that he only wanted the way to be pointed 
out. “ Bring tobacco ; you’re going to have an idle day,” 
said Angelo: “ I pay you when we separate.” He Avas 
deaf to entreaties-and refusals, and began to look mad about 
the eyes ; his poor coward plied him Avith expostulsttions, 
offered his Avife, his daughter, half the village, for the 
service : he had to follow, but would take no cigars. Angelo 
made his daughter fetch bread and cigars, and put a handful 
in his pocket, upon Avhich, after tw^o houi-s of inactivity at 
the foot of the little chapel, Avhere Angelo Avaited for the 
coming of Vittoria’s messenger, the innkeeper Avas glad to 



ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. 


231 


close his fist. About noon Lorenzo came, and at once acted 
a play of eyes for Angelo to perceive his distrust of the man 
and a multitude of bad things about him: he was reluctant, 
notwithstanding Angelo’s ready nod, to bring out a letter; 
and frowned again, for emphasis to the expressive comedy. 
The letter said :— 

“ I have fallen upon English friends. They lend me 
money. Fly to Lugano by the help of these notes : I inclose 
them, and will not ask pardon for it. The Yaltellina is 
dangerous; the Stelvio we know to be watched. Retrace 
your way, and then try the Engadine. I should stop on a 
breaking bridge if I thought my companion, my Carlo’s 
cousin, was near capture. I am well taken care of: one of 
my dearest friends, a captain in the English army, bears me 
company across. I have a maid from one of the villages, a 
willing girl. We ride up to the mountains; to-morrow we 
cross the pass; there is a glacier. Val di Non sounds 
Italian, but I am going into the enemy’s land. You see I 
am well guarded. My immediate anxiety concerns you; 
for what will our Carlo ask of me ? Lose not one moment. 
Away, and do not detain Lorenzo. He has orders to meet 
us up high in the mountain this evening. He is the best of 
servants: but I always meet the best everywhere—that is, 
in Italy. Leaving it, I grieve. No news from Milan, 
except of great confusion, there. I judge by the quiet of my 
sleep that we have come to no harm there. 

“ Your faithfullest 

“ Yittoria.*^ 

Lorenzo and the innkeeper had arrived at an altercation 
before Angelo finished reading. Angelo checked it, and told 
Lorenzo to make speed : he sent no message. 

“ My humanity,” Angelo then addressed his craven asso¬ 
ciate, “ counsels me that it’s better to drag you some distance 
on than to kill you. You’re a man of intelligence, and you 
know why I have to consider the matter. I give you guide’s 
pay up to the glacier, and ten florins buon’mano. Would 
you rather earn it with the blood of a countryman ? I can’t 
let that tongue of yours be on the high road of running 
Tedeschi: you know it.” 

“ Illustrious signore, obedience oils necessity,” quoth the 
innkeeper. “ If we had but a few more of my cigars 


232 


VITTORIA. 


“ Step on,” said Angelo sternly. 

They walked till dark and they were in keen air. A hut 
full of recent grass-cuttings, on the border of a sloping 
wood, sheltered them. The innkeeper moaned for food at 
night and in the morning, and Angelo tossed him pieces of 
bread. Bejmnd the wood they came upon bare crag and 
commenced a sharper ascent, reached the height, and roused 
an eagle. The great bird went up with a sharp yelp, hang¬ 
ing over them with knotted claws. Its shadow stretched 
across sweeps of fresh snow. The innkeeper sent a mocking 
yelp after the eagle. 

“■Up here, one forgets one is a father—what’s more, a 
husband,” he said, striking a finger on the side of his nose. 

“And a cur, a traitor, carrion,” said Angelo. 

“ Ah, signore, one might know you were a noble. You 
can’t understand our troubles, who carry a house on our 
heads, and have to fill mouths agape.” 

“Speak when you have better to say,” Angelo replied. 

“Pad:one, one would really like to have your good 
opinion ; and I’m lean as a wolf for a morsel of flesh. I 
could part with my buon’mano for a sight of red meat—oh ! 
red meat dripping.” 

“ If,” cried Angelo, bringing his eyebrows down black on 
the man,—“ if I knew that you had ever in your life 
betrayed one of us—look below; there you should lie to be 
pecked and gnawed at.” 

“ Ah, Jacopo Cruchi, what an end for you when you are 
full of good meanings!” the innkeeper moaned. “I see 
your ribs, my poor soul 1” 

Angelo quitted his side. The tremendous excitement of 
the Alpine solitudes was like a stringent wine to his sur¬ 
charged spirit. He was one to whom life and death had 
become as the yes and no of ordinary men : not more than a 
turning to the right or to the left. It surprised him that 
this fellow, knowing his own cowardice and his conscience, 
should consent to live, and care to eat to live. 

When he returned to his companion, he found the fellow 
drinking from the flask of an Austrian soldier. Another 
whitecoat was lying near. They pi'essed Angelo to drink, 
and began to play lubberly pranks. One clapped hands, 
while another rammed the flask at the reluctant mouth, till 
Angelo tripped him and made him a subject for deilsion; 


ACEOSS THE MOUNTAINS. 


233 


whereupon they were all good friends. Musket on shoulder, 
the soldiers descended, blowing at their finger-nails and 
puffing at their tobacco— lauter kiiiserlichcr (rank Imperial) 
as with a sad enforcement of resignation they had, while 
lighting, characterized the universally detested Government 
issue of the leaf. 

“ They are after /jer,” said Jacopo, and he shot out his 
thumb and twisted an eyelid. His looks became insolent, 
and he added: “ I let them go on; but now, for my part, I 
must tell you, my worthy gentleman, I’ve had enough of it. 
You go your way, I go mine. Pay me, and we part. With 
the utmost reverence, I quit you. Climbing mountains at 
my time of life is out of all reason. If you want companions. 
I’ll signal to that pair of Tedeschi ; they’re within hail. 
Would you like it ? Say the word, if you would—hey !” 

Angelo smiled at the visible effect of the liquor. 

“ Barto Rizzo would be the man to take you in hand,” he 
remarked. 

The innkeeper flung his head back to ejaculate, and mur¬ 
mured, “ Barto Rizzo ! defend me from him! Why, he 
levies contribution upon us in the Yaltellina for the good of 
Milan ; and if we don’t pay, we’re all of us down in a black 
book. Disobey, and it’s worse than swearing you won’t pay 
taxes to the legitimate—perdition to it!—Government. Do 
you know Barto Rizzo, padrone ? You don’t know him, I 
hope ? I’m sure you wouldn’t know such a fellow.” 

“ I am his favourite pupil,” said Angelo. 

“ I’d have sworn it,” groaned the innkeeper, and cursed 
the day and hour when Angelo crossed his threshold. That 
done, he begged permission to be allowed to return, crying 
with tears of entreaty for mercy: “ Barto Rizzo’s pupils are 
always out upon bloody businesses !” Angelo told him that 
he had now an opportunity of earning the approval of Barto 
Rizzo, and then said, “ On,” and they went in the track of 
the two whitecoats ; the innkeeper murmuring all the while 
that he wanted the approval of Barto Rizzo as little as his 
enmity ; he wanted neither frost nor fire. The glacier being 
traversed, they skirted a young stream, and andved at an 
inn, where they found the soldiers regaling. Jacopo was 
informed by them that the lady whom they were pursuing 
had not passed. They pushed their wdne for Angelo to 
drink : he declined, saying that he had sworn not to drink 


234 


VITTORIA. 


before he had shot the chamois with the white cross on his 
back. 

“Come; we’re two to one,” they said, “and drink yon 
shall this time !” 

“ Two to two,” returned Angelo: “ here is my Jacopo, and 
if he doesn’t count for one, I won’t call him father-in-law, 
and the fellow living at Cles may have his daughter without 
fighting for her.” 

“ Right so,” said one of the soldiers, “ and you don’t speak 
bad German already.” 

“ Haven’t I served in the ranks ?” said Angelo, giving a 
bugle-call of the reveillee of the cavalry. 

He got on with them so well that they related the object 
of their expedition, which was, to catch a runaway young 
rebel lady and hold her fast down at Cles for the great cap¬ 
tain— U7iser tuchtiger Hauptmann. 

“ Hadn’t she a servant, a sort of rascal ?” Angelo 
inquired. 

“ Right so; she had: but the doe’s the buck in this 
chase.” 

Angelo tossed them cigars. The valley was like a tumbled 
mountain, thick with crags and eminences, through which 
the river worked strenuously, sinuous in foam, hurrying at 
the turns. Angelo watched all the ways from a distant 
height till set of sun. He saw another couple of soldiers 
meet those two at the inn, and then one pair went up toward 
the vale-head. It seemed as if Vittoria had disconcerted 
them by having chosen another route. 

“ Padrone,” said Jacopo to him abruptly, when they 
descended to find a resting-place, “ you are, I speak humbly, 
so like the devil that I must enter into a stipulation with 
you, before I continue in your company, and take the worst 
at once. This is going to be the second night of my sleep¬ 
ing away from my wife : I merely mention it. I pinch her, 
and she beats me, and we are equal. But if you think of 
making me fight, I tell you I won’t. If there was a furnace 
behind me, I should fall into it rather than run against a 
bayonet. I’ve heard say that the nerves are in the front 
part of us, and that’s where I feel the shock. Now we’re 
on a plain footing. Say that I’m not to fight. I’ll be your 
servant till you release me, but say I’m not to fight; padrone, 
say that.” 


ACROSS THE MOUNTAIXS. 


235 


I can’t say that: I’ll say I won’t make you fight,” 
Angelo pacified him by replying. From this moment Jacopo 
followed him less like a graceless dog pulled by his chain. 
In fact, with the sense of prospective security, he tasted a 
luxurious amazement in being moved about by a superior 
will, Avafted from his inn, and paid for witnessing strange 
incidents. Angelo took care that he was fed well at the 
place Avhere they slept, but himself ate nothing. Early 
after dawn they mounted the heights above the road. It 
was about noon that Angelo discerned a party coming from 
the pass on foot, consisting of two women and thi'ee men. 
They rested an hour at the village Avhcre he had slept over¬ 
night ; the muskets were a quarter of a mile to the rear of 
them. When they started afresh, one of the muskets Avas 
discharged, and Avliile the echoes Avere rolling away, a reply 
to it sounded in the front. Angelo, from his post of obser¬ 
vation, could see that Vittoria and her party Avere marching 
between two guards, and that she herself must have per¬ 
ceived both the front and rearAvard couple. Yet she and 
her party held on their course at an even pace. For a time 
he kept them clearly in view ; but it Avas tough work along 
the slopes of crag : presently Jacopo slipped and went down. 
“Ab, padrone,” he said : “ I’m done for; leaA’'e me.” 

“ Not though 1 should have to haul you on my back,” 
replied Angelo. “ If I do leave you, I must cut out your 
tongue.” 

“ Rather than that, I’d go on a sprained ankle,” said 
Jacopo, and he strove manfully to conquer pain ; limping 
and exclaiming, “ Oh, my little village ! Oh, my little inn! 
When can a man say that he has finished running about the 
Avorld ! The moment he sits, in comes the devil.” 

Angelo Avas obliged to lead him doAvn to the open Avay, 
upon Avdiich they made slow progress. 

“ The noble gentleman might let me return—he might 
trust me noAV,” Jacopo whimpered. 

“ The devil trusts nobody,” said Angelo. 

“Ah, padrone! there’s a crucifix. Let me kneel by 
that.” 

Angelo indulged him. Jacopo knelt by the Avayside and 
prayed for an easy ankle and a snoring pillow and no 
Avakeners. After this he Avas refreshed. The sun sank; 
the darkness spread around ; the air grew icy. “ Does the 


236 


vittoeia. 


Blessed Virgin ever consider whafc patriots liave to endure ?” 
Jacopo muttered to himself, and aroused a rare laugh from 
Angelo, who seized him under the arm, half-lifting him on. 
At the inn where they rested, he bathed and bandaged the 
foot. 

“ I can’t help feeling a kindness to you for it,” said 
Jacopo. 

“ I can’t afford to leave you behind,” Angelo accounted 
for his attention. 

“ Padrone, we’ve been understanding one another all along 
by our thumbs. It’s that old inn of mine—the taxes ! we 
have to sell our souls to pay the taxes. There’s the tongue 
of the thing. I wouldn’t betray you ; I wouldn’t.” 

“ I’ll try you,” said Angelo, and put him to proof next 
day, when the soldiers stopped them as they were driving 
in a cart, and Jacopo swore to them that Angelo was his 
intended son-in-law. 

There was evidently au unusual activity among the gen¬ 
darmerie of the lower valley, the Yal di Non; for Jacopo 
had to repeat his fable more than once, and Angelo thought 
it prudent not to make inquiries about travellers. In this 
valley they were again in summer heat. Summer splendours 
robed the broken ground. The Yal di Non lies toward the 
sun, banked by the Yal di Sole, like the Southern lizard 
under a stone. Chestnut forest and shoulder over shoulder 
of vineyard, and meadows of marvellous emerald, with here 
and there central partly-wooded crags, peaked with castle- 
ruins, and ancestral castles that are still warm homes, and 
villages dropped among them, and a river bounding and 
rushing eagerly through the rich enclosure, form the scene, 
beneath that Italian sun which turns everything to gold. 
There is a fair breadth to the vale : it enjoys a great oval 
of sky : the falls of shade are dispersed, dot the hollow 
range, and are not at noontide a broad curtain passing over 
from right to left. The sun reigns and also governs in the 
Yal di Non. 

“ The grape has his full benefit here, padrone,” said 
Jacopo. 

But the place was too populous, and too much subjected 
to the general eye, to please Angelo. At Cles they were 
compelled to bear an inspection, and a little comedy occurred. 
Jacopo, after exhibiting Angelo as his son-in-law, seeing 


ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. 


237 


doubts on the soldiers’ faces, mentioned the name of the 
German suitor for his daughter’s hand—the carpenter, 
Johann Spellniann, to 'whose workshop he requested to be 
taken. Johann, being one of the odd Germans in the valley, 
was well known ; he was carving wood astride a stool, and 
stopped his whistling to listen to the soldiers, who took the 
first word out of Jacopo’s mouth, and were convinced, by 
•Johann’s droop of” the chin, that the tale had some truth in 
it; and more when Johann yelled at the Yaltelline innkeeper 
to know why, then, he had come to him, if he was pre¬ 
pared to play him false. One of the soldiers said bluntly 
that, as Angelo’s appearance answered to the portrait of a 
man for whom t*hey were on the lookout, they would, if their 
countryman liked, take him and give him a dose of marching 
and imprisonment. 

“ Ach ! that won’t make my little Rosetta love me better,” 
cried Johann, who commenced taking up a string of re¬ 
proaches against women, and pitched his carving-blade and 
tools abroad in the wood-dust. 

“Well, now, it’s queer you don’t want to fight this lad,” 
said Jacopo ; “ he’s come to square it with you that way, if 
you think best.” 

Johann spared a remark between his vehement impreca¬ 
tions against the sex to say that he was ready to fight; but 
his idea of vengeance was directed upon the abstract con¬ 
ception of a faithless womankind. Angelo, by reason of his 
detestation of Germans, temporarily threw himself into the 
part he was playing to the extent of despising him. Johann 
admitted to Jacopo that intervals of six months’ duration in 
a courtship were wide jumps for Love to take. 

“ Yes ; amor! amor 1” he exclaimed with extreme dejection; 
“ I could wait. Well! since you’ve brought the young man, 
we’ll have it out.” 

He stepped before Angelo with bare fists. Jacopo had to 
interpose. The soldiers backed Johann, who now said to 
Angelo, “ Since you’ve come for it, we’ll have it out.” 

Jacopo had great difficulty in bringing him to see that it 
was a matter to talk over. Johann swore he would not talk 
about it, and -was ready to fight a dozen Italians, man up 
man down. 

“Rare-fisted?” screamed Jacopo. 

“ Hey! the old way I Give him knuckles, and break his 


238 


VITTORIA. 


back, my boy!” cried fclie soldiers; “none of their steel this 
side of the mountain.” 

Johann waited for Angelo to lift his hands; and to insti¬ 
gate his reluctant adversary, thumped his chest; but Angelo 
did not move. The soldiers roared. 

“ If she has you, she shall have a dolly,” said Johann, now 
heated with the prospect ef presenting that sort of husband 
to his little Rosetta. At this juncture Jacopo threw himselJi 
between them. 

“ It shall be a real fight,” he said; “ my daughter can’t 
make up her mind, and she shall have the best man. Leave 
me to arrange it all fairly ; and you come here in a couple of 
hours, my children,” he addressed the soldiers, who un¬ 
willingly quitted the scene where there was a certainty of 
fun, on the assurance of there being a livelier scene to 
come. 

When they had turned their heels on the shop, Jacopo 
made a face at Johann; Johann swung round upon Angelo, 
and met a smile. Then followed explanations. 

“ What’s that you say ? She’s true—she’s true ?” ex¬ 
claimed the astounded lover. 

“ True enough, but a girl at an inn wants hotter courting,” 
said Jacopo. “ His Excellency here is after his own sweet¬ 
heart.” 

Johann huzzaed, hugged at Angelo’s hands, and gave a 
lusty filial tap to Jacopo on the shoulder. Bread and grapes 
and Tyrolese wine were placed for them, and Johann’s mother 
soon produced a salad, eggs, and fowl; and then and there 
declared her willingness to receive Rosetta into the house¬ 
hold, “ if she would swear at the outset never to have 
heimweh (home-longing) ; as people—men and women, both 
—always did when they took a new home across a moun¬ 
tain.” 

“ She won’t—will she ?” Johann inquired with a dubious 
spai-kle. 

“ Hot she,” said Jacopo. 

After the meal he drew Johann aside. They returned to 
Angelo, and Johann beckoned him to leave the house by a 
back way, leading up a slope of garden into high vine-poles. 
He said that he had seen a party pass out of Cles from the 
inn early, in a light car, on for Meran. The gendarmerie 
were busy on the road: a mounted officer had dashed up to 



ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS. 239 

tlie inn an hour laler, and had followed them : it was the 
talk of the village. 

“ Padrone, you dismiss me now,” said Jacopo. 

“I pay you, but don’t dismiss you,” said Angelo, and 
handed him a bank-note. 

“I stick to you, padrone, till you do dismiss me,” Jacopo 
sighed. 

Johann offered to conduct them as far as the Monte 
Pallade pass, and they started, avoiding the high road, 
which was enviably broad and solid. Within view of a vil¬ 
lage under climbing woods, they discerned an open car, 
flanked by bayonets, returning to Cles. Angelo rushed 
ahead of them down the declivity, and stood full in the 
road to meet the procession. A girl sat in the car, who 
hung her head, weeping; Lorenzo was beside her; an 
Englishman on foot gave employment to a pair of soldiers to 
get him along. As they came near at marching pace, 
Lorenzo yawned and raised his hand to his cheek, keeping 
the thumb pointed behind him. Including the girl, there 
were four prisoners : Vittoria was absent. The Englishman, 
as he was being propelled forward, addressed Angelo in 
French, asking him whether he could bear to see an un¬ 
offending foreigner treated with wanton violation of law. 
The soldiers belloved at their captive, and Angelo sent a 
stupid shrug after him. They rounded a bend of the road. 
Angelo tightened the buckle at his waist. 

“Now I trust you,” he said to Jacopo. “Follow the 
length of five miles over the pass : if you don’t see me then, 
you have your liberty, tongue and all.” 

With that he doubled his arms and set forth at a steady 
run, leaving his companions to speculate on his powers of 
endurance. They did so complacently enough, until Jacopo 
backed him for a distance and Johann betted against him, 
when behold them at intervals taking a sharp trot to keep 
him in view. 


240 


VITTOKIA. 


CHAPTER XXYL - 

THE DUEL IN THE PASS. 

Meanwhile Captain Weisspriess had not been idle. 
Standing at a blunt angle of the ways converging upon 
Vittoria’s presumable destination, he had roused up the 
gendarmerie along the routes to Meran by Trent on one side, 
and Bormio on the other ; and he soon came to the conclusion 
that she had rejected the valley of the Adige for the Valtel- 
line, whence he supposed that she would be tempted either 
to cross the Stelvio or one of the passes into Southernmost 
Tyrol. He wms led to think that she would certainly bear 
upon Switzerland, by a course of reasoning connected with 
Angelo Guidascarpi, who, fleeing under the cross of blood, 
might be calculated on to push for the mountains of the 
Republic ; and he might—judging by the hazards—conduct 
the lady thither, to enjoy the fruits of crime and love in 
security. The captain, when he had discovered Angelo’s 
crest and name on the betraying handkerchief, had no 
doubts concerning the nature of their intimacy, and he was 
spurred by a new and thrice eager desire to capture the 
couple—the criminal for the purposes of justice, and the 
other because he had pledged his notable reputation in the 
chase of her. The conscience of this man’s vanity was 
extremely active. He had engaged to conquer the stubborn 
girl, and he thought it possible that he might take a mistress 
from the patriot ranks, Avith a loud ha! ha ! at reAmlutionists, 
and some triumph over his comrades. And besides he was 
the favourite of Countess Anna of Lenkenstein, who yet 
refused to bring her estates to him ; she dared to trifle ; she 
also was a Avoman Avho required rude lessons. Weisspriess, 
a poor soldier bearing the heritage of lusty appetites, had 
an eye on his fortune, and serA^ed neither Mars alone nor 
Venus. Countess Anna Avas to be among that company 
assembled at the Castle of Sonnenberg in j\Ieran; and if, 
Avhile introducing Vittoria there AAuth a discreet and exciting 
reserve, he at the same time handed oA^er the assassin of 
Count Paul, a fine harvest of praise and various pleasant 
forms of female passion Avere to be looked for—a rich 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS. 


241 


vista of a montli’s intrigue; at the end of it possibly his 
wealthy lady, thoroughly tamed, for a wife, and redoubled 
triumph over his comrades. Without these successes, what 
availed the fame of the keenest swordsman in the Austrian 
army ?—The feast as well as the plumes of vanity offered 
rewards for the able exercise of his wits. 

He remained at the sub-Alpine inn until his servant 
Wilhelm (for whom he had despatched the duchess’s chas¬ 
seur, then in attendance on Yittoria) arrived from Milan, 
bringing his uniform. The chasseur was directed on the 
Bormio line, with orders that he should cause the arrest of 
Yittoria only in the case of her being on the extreme limit 
of the Swiss frontier. Keeping his communications alert, 
Weisspriess bore that way to meet him. Fortune smiled on 
his strategy. Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz—full of wine, 
and discharging hurrahs along the road—met him on the 
bridge over the roaring Oglio, just out of Edolo, and gave 
him news of the fugitives. “ Both of them were at the big 
hotel in Bormio,” said Jacob ; “ and I set up a report that 
the Stelvio was w^atched; and so it is.” He added that he 
thought they were going to separate ; he had heard some¬ 
thing to that effect; he believed that the young lady was 
bent upon crossing one of the passes to Meran. Last night 
it had devolved on him to kiss aw'ay the tears of the young 
lady’s maid, a Yaltelline peasant-girl, who deplored the 
idea of an expedition over the mountains, and had, wdth the 
usual cat-like tendencies of these Italian minxes, torn his 
cheek in return for his assiduities. Jacob displayed the 
pretty scratch obtained in the Herr Captain’s service, and 
got his money for having sighted Yittoria and seen double. 
AVeisspriess decided in his mind that Angelo had now 
separated from her (or rather, she from him) for safety. 
He thought it very probable that she would likewise fly to 
Switzerland. Yet, knowing that there was the attraction 
of many friends for her at Meran, he conceived that he 
should act more prudently by throwing himself on that 
line, and he sped Jacob Baumwalder along the Yaltelline by 
A"al Yiola, up to Ponte in the Engadine, wdth orders to 
seize her if he could see her, and have her conveyed to Cles, 
in Tyrol. Yittoria being only by the gentlest interpreta¬ 
tion of her conduct not under interdict, an unscrupulous 
Imperial officer might in those military times venture to 

R 


242 VITTORIA. 

employ tlie gendarmerie for his own purposes, if he could 
but give a plausible colour of devotion to the Imperial 
interests. 

The chasseur sped lamentingly back, and Weisspriess, 
taking a guide from the skirting hamlet above Edolo, quitted 
the Val Camonica, climbed the Tonale, and reached Ver- 
miglio in the branch valley of that name, scientifically 
observing the features of the country as he went. At 
Vermiglio he encountered a brother officer of one of his 
former regiments, a fat major on a tour of inspection, who 
happened to be a week behind news of the army, and 
detained him on the pretext of helping him on his car— a 
mockery that drove Weisspriess to the perpetual reply, 
“ You are my superior officer,” which reduced the major to 
ask him whether he had been degraded a step. As usual, 
Weisspriess was pushed to assert his haughtiness, backed 
by the shadow of his sword. “I am a man with a family,” 
said the major, modestly. “ Then I shall call you my 
superior officer while they allow you to remain so,” returned 
Weisspriess, who scorned a married soldier. 

“ I aspired to the Staff once myself,” said the major. 
“ Unfortunately, I grew in girth—the wrong way for 
ambition. I digest, I assimilate with a fatal ease. Stout 
men are doomed to the obscurer paths. You may quote 
Napoleon as a contrary instance. I maintain positively 
that his day was over, his sun was eclipsed, when his 
valet had to loosen the buckles of his waistcoat and breech. 
Now, what do you say ?” 

“1 say,” Weisspriess replied, “that if there’s a further 
depreciation of the paper currency, we shall none of us 
have much chance of digesting or assimilating either—if 1 
know at all what those processes mean.” 

“ Our good Lombard cow is not half squeezed enough,” 
observed the major, confidentially in tone. “ When she 
makes a noise—quick! the pail at her udders and work 
away; that’s my advice. What’s the verse ?—our Zwit- 
terwitz’s, I mean ; the Viennese poet;— 

‘ Her milk is good—the Lombard cow ; 

Jiet her be noisy when slie pleases ; 

But if she kicks the pail, I vow. 

We’]! make her used to sharper squeezes : 

We’ll write her mighty deeds in cheeses : 

(That is, if she yields milk enow).’ ” 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS. 


243 


“ Capital! capital !” the major applauded his quotation, 
and went on to speak of ‘ that Zwitterwitz’ as having served 
in a border regiment, after creating certain Court scandal, 
and of his carrying olf a Wallach lady from her lord and 
selling her to a Turk, and turning Turk himself and keeping 
a harem. Five years later he reappeared in Vienna with 
a volume of what he called ‘ Black Eagle Poems,’ and 
regained possession of his barony. “ So far, so good,” said 
the major ; “ but when he applied for his old commission in 
the army—that was rather too cool.” 

Weisspriess muttered intelligibly, “ I’ve heard the remark, 
that you can’t listen to a man five minutes without getting 
something out of him.” 

“ I don’t know ; it may be,” said the major, imagining 
that Weisspriess demanded some stronger flavours of gossip 
in his talk. “ There’s no stir in these valleys. They arrested, 
somewhere close on Trent yesterday afternoon, a fellow call¬ 
ing himself Beppo, the servant of an Italian woman—a 
dancer, I fancy. They’re on the look-out for her too, I’m 
told; though what sort of capers she can be cutting in Tyrol, 
1 can’t even guess.” 

The major’s car was journeying leisurely toward Cles. 
“Whip that brute !” AVeisspriess sang out to the driver, and 
begging the major’s pardon, requested to know wdiither he 
was bound. The major informed him that he hoped to sup 
in Trent. “Good heaven! not at this pace,” AV^eisspriess 
shouted. But the pace was barely accelerated, and he con¬ 
cealed his reasons for invoking speed. They were late in 
arriving at Trent, where Weisspriess cast eye on the im¬ 
prisoned wretch, who declared piteously that he was the 
trusted and innocent servant of the signorina Vittoria, and 
had been visiting all the castles of Meran in search of her. 
The captain’s man Wilhelm had been the one to pounce on 
poor Beppo while the latter was wandering disconsolately. 
Leaving him to howl, AV'eisspriess procured the loan of a 
horse from a colonel of cavalry at the Buon Consiglio 
barracks, and mounted an hour before dawn, followed by 
AVilhelm. He reached Cles in time to learn that Vittoria 
and her party had passed through it a little in advance of 
him. Breakfasting there, he enjoyed the first truly calm 
cigar of many days. Gendarmes whom he had met near the 
place came in at his heels. They said that the party wmuld 


244 


VITTORIA. 


positively be arrested, or not allowed to cross the Monte 
Pallade. The passes to Meran and Botzen, and the road to 
Trent, were strictly guarded. Weisspriess hurried them 
forward with particular orders that they should take into 
custody the whole of the party, excepting the lady; her, if 
arrested with the others, they were to release : her maid and 
the three men were to be marched back to Cles, and there 
kept fast. 

The game was now his own: he surveyed its pretty in¬ 
tricate moves as on a map. The character of Herr Johannes 
he entirely discarded: an Imperial officer in his uniform, 
sword in belt, could scarcely continue that meek performance. 
“ But I may admire music, and entreat her to give me a 
particular note, if she has it,” said the captain, hanging in 
contemplation over a coming scene, like a quivering hawk 
about to close its wings. His heart beat thick; which 
astonished him : hitherto it had never made that sort of 
movement. 

From Cles he despatched a letter to the fair chatelaine at 
Meran, telling her that by dainty and skilful management 
of the paces, he w^as bringing on the intractable heroine of 
the Fifteenth, and was to be expected in about two or three 
days. The letter was entrusted to Wilhelm,* who took the 
borrowed horse back to Trent. 

Weisspriess was on the muletrack a mile above the last 
village ascending to the pass, when he observed the party 
of prisoners, and climbed up into covert. As they went 
by he discerned but one person in female garments ; the 
necessity to crouch for obscurity prevented him from examin¬ 
ing them separately. He counted three men and beheld 
one of them between gendarmes. “ That must be my villain,” 
he said. 

It was clear that Vittoria had chosen to go forward alone. 
The captain praised her spirit, and now pushed ahead with 
hunter’s strides. He passed an inn, closed and tenantless : 
behind him lay the Val di Hon ; in front the darker valley 
of the Adige: where was the prey ? A storm of rage set in 
upon him with the fear that he had been befooled. He lit a 
cigar, to assume ease of aspect, whatever the circumstances 
might be, and gain some inward serenity by the outer reflec¬ 
tion of it—not altogether without success. “ My lady must 
be a doughty walker,” he thought; “ at this rate she will be 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS. 


245 


in the Ultenthal before sunset.” A wooded height ranged 
on his left as he descended rapidly. Coming to a roll of 
grass sown with grey rock, he climbed it, and mounting one 
of the boulders, beheld at a distance of half-a-dozen stone- 
throws downward, the figure of a woman holding her hand 
cup-shape to a wayside fall of water. The path by which 
she was going rounded the height he stood on. He sprang 
over the rocks, catching up his clattering steel scabbard; 
and plunging through tinted leafage and green underwood, 
steadied his heels on a sloping bank, and came down on the 
path with stones and earth and brambles, in time to appear 
as a seated pedestrian when Yittoria turned the bend of the 
mountain way. 

Gracefully withdrawing the cigar from his mouth, and 
touching his breast with turned-in fingers, he accosted her 
with a comical operatic effort at her high notes : “ Italia !” 

She gathered her arms on her bosom and looked swiftly 
round : then at the apparition of her enemy. 

It is but an ironical form of respect that you offer to the 
prey you have been hotly chasing and have caught. Weiss- 
priess conceived that he had good reasons for addressing her 
in the tone best suited to his character: he spoke with a 
ridiculous mincing suavity; 

“ My pretty sweet! are you not tired ? We have not seen 
one another for days ! Can you have forgotten the enthu¬ 
siastic Herr Johannes ? You have been in pleasant company, 
no doubt; but I have been all—all alone. Think of that! 
What an exceedingly fortunate chance this is I I was smoking 
dolefully, and imagining anything but such a rapture.—No, 
no, mademoiselle, be mannerly.” The captain blocked her 
passage. “ You must not leave me while I am speaking. A 
good governess would have taught you that in the nursery. 
I am afraid you had an inattentive governess, who did not 
impress upon you the duty of recognizing friends when you 
meet them. Ha ! you were educated in England, I have 
heard. Shake hands. It is our custom—-I think a better 
one—to kiss on the right cheek and the left, but we will 
shake hands.” 

“In God’s name, sir, let me go on,” Yittoria could just 
gather voice to utter. 

“ But,” cried the delighted captain, “you address me in 
the tones of a basso profuudo! It is absurd. Ho you sup- 


246 


VITTORJA. 


pose tliat I am to be deceived by your artifice ?—rogue that 
you are! Don’t I know you are a woman ? a sweet, an 
ecstatic, a darling little woman !” 

He laughed. She shivered to hear the solitary echoes. 
There was sunlight on the farthest Adige walls, but damp 
shade already filled the East-facing hollows. 

“ I beg you very earnestly, to let me go on,” said Vittoria. 

“ With equal earnestness, I beg you to let me accompany 
you,” he replied. “ I mean no offence, mademoiselle ; but 
I have sworn that I and no one but I shall conduct you to 
the Castle of Sonnenberg, where you will meet the Lenken- 
stein ladies, with whom 1 have the honour to be acquainted. 
You see, you have nothing to fear if you play no foolish 
pranks, like a kicking filly in the pasture.” 

“ If it is your pleasure,” she said gmvely ; but he obtruded 
the bow of an arm. She drew back. Her first blank despair 
at sight of the trap she had fallen into, was clearing before 
her natural high courage. 

“ My little lady ! my precious prima donna ! do you refuse 
the most trifling aid from me ? It’s because I’m a German.” 

“ There are many noble gentlemen who are Germans,” said 
Yittoria. 

“ It’s because I’m a German; I know it is. But, don’t you 
see, Germany invades Italy, and keeps hold of her ? Provi¬ 
dence decrees it so—ask the priests ! You are a delicious 
Italian damsel, and you will take the arm of a German.” 

Yittoria raised her face. “Do you mean that I am your 
prisoner ?” 

“ You did not look braver at La Scala ;” the captain bowed 
to her. 

“Ah, I forgot,” said she ; “ you saw me there. If, signore, 
you will do me the favour to conduct me to the nearest inn, 
I will sing to you.” 

“ It is precisely my desire, signorina. You are not married 
to that man Guidascarpi, I presume ? Ho, no: you are 
merely his . . . friend. May I have the felicity of hearing 
you call me your friend. Why, you tremble ! are you afraid 
of me ?” 

“To tell the truth, you talk too much to please me,” said 
Yittoria. 

The captain praised her frankness, and he liked it. The 
trembling of her frame still fascinated his eyes, but her 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS. 


247 


courage and tlie absence of all womanly play and cowering 
about her manner impressed him seriously. He stood look¬ 
ing at her, biting his moustache, and trying to provoke her 
to smile. 

“ Conduct you to the nearest inn; yes,” he said, as if 
musing. “ To the nearest inn, where you will sing to me; 
sing to me. It is not an objectionable scheme. The inns 
will not be choice; but the society will be exquisite. Say 
first, I am your sworn cavalier ?” 

“ It does not become me to say that,” she replied, feigning 
a demure sincerity, on the verge of her patience. 

“ You allow me to say it ?” 

She gave him a look of fire and passed him; whereat, fol¬ 
lowing her, he clapped hands, and affected to regard the 
movement as part of an operatic scena. “ It is now time to 
draw your dagger,” he said. “ You have one, I’m certain.” 

“ Anything but touch me !” cried Yittoria, turning on him. 
‘‘I know that I am safe. You shall teaze me, if it amuses 
you.” 

“Am I not, now, the object of your detestation ?” 

“You are near being so.” 

“ You see ! You put on no disguise ; why should I 

This remark struck her with force. 

“My temper is foolish,” she said softly. “I have always 
been used to kindness.” 

He vowed that she had no comprehension of kindness; 
otherwise would she continue defiant of him ? She denied 
that she was defiant: upon which he accused the hand in 
her bosom of clutching a dagger. She cast the dagger at 
his feet. It was nobly done, and he was not insensible to the 
courage and inspiration of the act; for it checked a little 
example of a trial of strength that he had thought of exhi¬ 
biting to an armed damsel. 

“ Shall I pick it up for you ?” he said. 

“ You will oblige me,” was her answer; but she could not 
control a convulsion of her underlip that her defensive 
instinct told her was best hidden. 

“ Of course, you know you are safe,” he repeated her pre¬ 
vious words, while examining the silver handle of the dagger. 
“ Safe ? certainly! Here is C. A. to Y. . . . A. neatly 
engraved: a gift; so that the young gentleman may bo sure 
the young lady will defend herself from lions and tigers and 


248 


VITTORIA. 


wild boars, if ever sbe goes through forests and over moun¬ 
tain passes, I will not obtrude my curiosity, but who is 

V. . . A. ?” 

The dagger was Carlo’s gift to her; the engraver, by 
singular misadventure, had put a capital letter for the con¬ 
cluding letter of her name instead of little a ; she remembered 
the blush on Carlo’s face when she had drawn his attention 
to the error, and her own blush when she had guessed its 
meaning. 

“ It spells my name,” she said. 

“ Your^ assumed name of Vittoria. And who is C. A. 

“ Those are the initials of Count Carlo Ammiani.” 

“ Another lover F” 

“ He is my sole lover. He is my betrothed. Oh, good 
God!” she threw her eyes up to heaven; “how long am I 
to endure the torture of this man in my pathway ? Go, sir, 
or let me go on. You are intolerable. It’s the spirit of a 
tiger. I have no fear of you.” 

“Hay, nay,” said Weisspriess, “I asked the question 
because I am under an obligation to run Count Carlo 
Ammiani through the body, and felt at once that I should 
regret the necessity. As to your not fearing me, really, far 
from wishing to hurt you-” 

Vittoria had caught sight of a white face framed in the 
autumnal forest above her head. So keen was the glad 
expression of her face, that Weisspriess looked up. 

“ Come, Angelo, come to me,” she said confidently 

Weisspriess plucked his sword out, and called to him 
imperiously to descend. 

Beckoned downward by white hand and flashing blade, 
Angelo steadied his feet and hands among drooping chestnut 
boughs, and bounded to Vittoria’s side. 

“How march on,” Weisspriess weaved his sword; “you 
are my prisoners.” 

“You,” retorted Angelo; “I know you; you are a man 
marked out for one of us. I bid you turn back, if you care 
for your body’s safety.” 

“Angelo Guidascarpi, I also know you. Assassin! you 
double murderer! Defy me, and I slay you in the sight of 
your paramour.” 

“ Captain Weisspriess, what you have spoken merits death. 
I implore of my Maker that I may not have to kill you.” 



THE DUEL IN THE PASS. 


249 


'‘Fool! you are unarmed.” 

Angelo took his stilet in his fist. 

“ I have warned you, Captain Weisspriess. Here I stand. 
I dare you to advance.” 

“You pronounce my name abominably,” said the captain, 
dropping his sword’s point. “ If you think of resisting me, 
let us have no women looking on.” He waved his left hand 
at Vittoria. 

Angelo urged her to go. “ Step on for our Carlo’s sake.” 
But it was asking too much of her. 

“Can you fight this man*f” she asked. 

“I can fight him and kill him.” 

“ I will not step on,” she said. “ Must you fight him ?” 

“ There is no choice.” 

Vittoria walked to a distance at once. 

Angelo directed the captain’s eyes to where, lower in the 
pass, there w^as a level plot of meadow. 

Weisspriess nodded. “ The odds are in my favour, so you 
shall choose the ground.” 

All three went silently to the meadow. 

It was a circle of green on a projecting shoulder of the 
mountain, bounded by woods that sank toward the now 
shadowy South-flowing Adige vale, whose Western heights 
were gathering red colour above a strongly-marked brown 
line. Vittoria stood at the border of the wood, leaving the 
two men to their work. She knew when speech was useless. 

Captain Weisspriess paced behind Angelo until the latter 
stopped short, saying, “Here!” 

“Wherever you please,” Weisspriess responded. “The 
ground is of more importance to you than to me.” 

They faced mutually; one felt the point of his stilet, the 
other the temper of his sword. 

“ Killing you, Angelo Guidascarpi, is the killing of a dog. 
But there are such things as mad dogs. This is not a duel. 
It is a righteous execution, since you force me to it: I shall 
deserve your thanks for saving you from the hangman. I 
think you have heard that I can use my weapon. There’s 
death on this point for you. Make your peace with your 
Maker.” 

Weisspriess spoke sternly. He delayed the Ufting of his 
bwoikI that the bloody soul plight, pray. 


250 


VITTOEIA. 


Angelo said, “ You are a good soldier; you are a bad 
priest. Come on.” 

A nod of magnanimous resignation to the duties of his 
office was the captain’s signal of readiness. He knew exactly 
the method of fighting which Angelo must adopt, and he 
saw that his adversary was supple, and sinewy, and very 
keen of eye. But, what can well compensate for even one 
additional inch of steel ? A superior weapon wielded by a 
trained wrist in perfect coolness means victory, by every 
reasonable reckoning. In the present instance, it meant 
nothing other than an execution, as he had said. His con¬ 
templation of his own actual share in the performance 
was nevertheless unpleasant; and it was but half willingly 
that he straightened out his sword and then doubled his 
arm. He lessened the odds in his favour considerably by his 
too accurate estimation of them. He was also a little 
unmanned by the thought that a woman was to see him 
using his advantage; but she stood firm in her distant 
corner, refusing to be waved out of sight. Weisspriess had 
again to assure himself that it was not a duel, but the 
enforced execution of a criminal who would not surrender, 
and who ^as in his way. Fronting a creature that would 
vainly assail him, and temporarily escape impalement by 
bounding and springing, dodging and backing, now here now 
there, like a dangling bob-cherry, his military gorge rose 
with a sickness of disgust. He had ^member as vividly 
as he could realize it, that this man’s life was forfeited, and 
that the slaughter of him was a worthy service to Countess 
Anna; also, that there were present reasons for desiring to 
be quit of him. He gave Angelo two thrusts, and bled him. 
The skill which warded off the more vicious one aroused his 
admiration. 

“ Pardon my blundering,” he said ; “ I have never engaged 
a saltimbanque before.” 

They recommenced. Weisspriess began to weigh the 
sagacity of his opponent’s choice ‘ of open ground, where he 
could lengthen the discourse of steel by retreating and 
retreating, and swinging easily to right or to left. In the 
narrow track the sword would have transfixed him after a 
single feint. He w^as amused. Much of the cat was in his 
combative nature. An idea of disabling or dismembering 
Angelo, and forwarding him to Meran, caused him to triiie 


THE DUEL IN THE TASS. 


251 


further witb the edge of the blade. Angelo took a cut, and 
turned it on his arm ; free of the deadly point, he rushed in 
and delivered a stab; but Weisspriess saved his breast. 
Quick, they resumed their former positions. 

“ I am really so unused to this game ! ” said Weisspriess, 
apologetically. 

^ He was pale: his unsteady breathing, and a deflection of 
his dripping sword-wrist, belied his coolness. Angelo 
plunged full on him, dropped, and again reached his right 
arm ; they hung, getting blood for blood, with blazing inter¬ 
penetrating eyes ;—a ghastly work of dark hands at half 
lock thrusting, and savage eyes reading the fiery pages of 
the book of hell. At last the Austrian got loose from the 
lock and hurled him off. 

“ That bout was hotter,” he remarked; and kept his 
sword-point out on the whole length of the arm: he would 
have scorned another for so miserable a form either of 
attack or defence. 

Vittoria beheld Angelo circling round the point, which 
met him everywhere; like the minute hand of a clock about 
to sound his hour, she thought. 

He let fall both his arms, as if beaten, which b*-ought on 
the attack: by sheer evasion he got away from the sword’s 
lunge, and essayed a second trial of the bite of steel at close 
quarters ; but the Austrian backed and kept him to the 
point, darting short alluring thrusts, thinking to tempt him 
on, or to wind him, and then to have him. Weisspriess was 
chilled by a more curious revulsion from this sort of engage¬ 
ment than he at first experienced. He had become nervously 
incapable of those proper niceties of sword-play which, with¬ 
out any indecent hacking and maiming, should have stretched 
Angelo, neatly slain, on the mat of green, before he had a 
chance. Even now the sight of the man was distressing to 
an honourable duellist. Angelo was scored with blood- 
marks. Feeling that he dared not offer another chance to 
a fellow so desperately close-dealing, Weisspriess thrust 
fiercely, but delayed his fatal stroke. Angelo stooped and 
pulled up a handful of grass and soft earth in his left hand. 

“We have been longer about it than I expected,” said 
Weisspriess. 

Angelo tightened his fingers about the stringy grass-tuft; 
he stood like a dreamer, leaning over to the sword; suddenly 


252 


VITTOEIA. 


he sprang on it, received the point right in his side, sprang 
on it again, and seized it in his hand, and tossed it up, and 
threw it square out in time to burst within guard and strike 
his stilet below the Austrian’s collar-bone. The blade took 
a glut of blood, as when the wolf tears quick at dripping 
flesh. It was at a moment when Weisspriess was courteously 
bantering him with the question whether he was ready, 
meaning that the affirmative should open the gates of death 
to him. 

The stilet struck thrice. Wiesspriess tottered, and hung 
his jaw like a man at a spectre: amazement was on his 
features. 

“ Remember Broncini and young Branciani !” 

Angelo spoke no other words throughout the combat. 

Weisspriess threw himself forward on a feeble lunge of 
his sword, and let the point sink in the ground, as a palsied 
cripple supports his frame, swayed, and called to Angelo to 
come on, and try another stroke, another—one more! He 
fell in a lump : his look of amazement was sui^mounted by a 
strong frown. 

His enemy was hanging above him panting out of wide 
nostrils, like a hunter’s horse above the long-tongued quarry, 
when Vittoria came to them. 

She reached her strength to the wounded man to turn his 
face to heaven. 

He moaned, “ Finish me and, as he lay with his back to 
earth, “ Good evening to the old army!” 

A vision of leaping tumbrils, and long marching columns 
about to deploy, passed before his eyelids : he thought he 
had fallen on the battle-field, and heard a drum beat furiously 
in the back of his head; and on streamed the cavalry, 
wonderfully caught away to such a distance that the figures 
were all diminutive, and the regimental colours swam in 
smoke, and the enemy danced a plume here and there out of 
the sea, while his mother and a forgotten Viennese girl 
gazed at him with exactly the same unfamiliar countenance, 
and refused to hear that they were unintelligible in the roar¬ 
ing of guns and floods and hurrahs, and the thumping of the 
tremendous big drum behind his head—“ somewhere in the 
middle of the earth he tried to explain the locality of that 
terrible drumming noise to them, and Vittoria conceived him 
to be delirouii ] but he knew that he was sensible : he knew 


THE DUEL IN THE PASS. 


253 


her and Angelo and the raonntain-pass, and that he had a 
cigar-case in his pocket worked in embroidery of crimson, 
blue, and gold, by the hands of Countess Anna. He said 
distinctly that he desired the cigar-case to be delivered to 
Countess Anna at the Castle of Sonnenberg, and rejoiced on 
being assured that his wish was comprehended and should 
be fulfilled; but the marvel was, that his mother should still 
refuse to give him wine, and suppose him to be a boy: and 
when he was so thirsty and dry-lipped that though Mina 
was bending over him, just fresh frem Mariazell, he had not 
the heart to kiss her or lift an arm to her !—His horse was 
off with him—whither ?—He was going down with a com¬ 
pany of infantry in the Gulf of Venice: cards were in his 
hand, visible, though he could not feel them, and as the 
vessel settled for the black plunge, the cards flushed all 
honours, and his mother shook her head at him : he sank, 
and heard Mina sighing all the length of the water to the 
bottom, which grated and gave him two horrid shocks of 
pain: and he cried for a doctor, and admitted that his horse 
had managed to throw him ; but wine was the cure, brandy 
was the cure, or water, water ! 

Water was sprinkled on his forehead and put to his 
lips. 

He thanked Vittoria by name, and imagined himself that 
General, serving under old Wurmser, of whom the tale is 
told that being shot and lying grievously wounded on the 
harsh Rivoli ground, he obtained the help of a French officer 
in as bad case as himself, to moisten his black tongue and 
write a short testamentary document with his blood, and for 
a way of returning thanks to^the Frencliman, he put down, 
among others, the name of his friendly enemy’s widow; 
whereupon both resigned their hearts to death; but the 
Austrian survived to find the sad widow and espouse her. 

His mutterings were full of gratitude, sliowing a vividly 
transient impression to what was about him, that vanished 
in an arrow-headed flight through clouds into lands of 
memory. It pained him, he said, that he could not offer her 
marriage; but he requested that when his chin Avas shaved 
his moustache should be brushed up out of the way of the 
clippers, for he and all his family Avere conspicuous for the 
immense amount of life Avhich they had in them, and his 
father had lain six-and-thirty hours bleeding on the field of 


2o4 


VITTORIA. 


Wagram, and had yet survived to beget a race as hearty as 
himself:—“ Old Austria ! thou grand old Austria!” 

The smile was proud, though faint, which accompanied 
the apostrophe, addressed either to his country or to his 
father’s personification of it; it was inexpressibly pathetic to 
Vittoria, who understood his “ Oesterreich,” and saw the weak 
and helpless bleeding man, with his eyeballs working under 
the lids, and the palms of his hands stretched out open— 
weak as a corpse, but conquering death. 

The arrival of Jacopo and Johann furnished help to carry 
him onward to the nearest place of shelter. Angelo would 
not quit her side until he had given money and directions to 
both the trembling fellows, together with his name, that 
they might declare the author of the deed at once if ques¬ 
tioned. He then bowed to Yittoria slightly and fled. They 
did not speak. 

The last sunbeams burned full crimson on the heights of 
the Adige mountains as Yittoria followed the two pale men 
who bore the wounded officer between them at a slow pace 
for the nearest village in the descent of the pass. 

Angelo watched them out of sight. The far-off red rocks 
spun round his eye-balls ; the meadow was a whirling thread 
of green; the brown earth heaved up to him. He felt that 
he was diving, and bad the thought that there w'as but 
water enough to moisten his red hands when his senses left 
him. 


CHAPTER XXYII. 

A NEW ORDEAL. 

The old city of Meran faces Southward to the yellow hills 
of Italy, across a broad vale, between two mountain-walls 
and torrent-waters. With one hand it takes the bounding 
green Passeyr, and with the other the brown-rolling Adige, 
and plunges them together in roaring foam under the shadow 
of the Western wall. It stands on the spur of a lower central 
eminence crowned by a grey castle, and the sun has it from 
every aspect. The shape of a swan in water may describe 
its position, for the Yintschgau and the stony Passoyrthal 



A NEW OliDExVL. 


255 


make a strong curve on two sides as they descend upon it 
Avith their rivers, and the bosom of the city projects, while 
the head appears bending gracefully backward. Many castles 
are in view of it; the loud and tameless Passeyr girdles it 
with an emerald cincture; there is a sea of arched vineyard 
foliage at his feet. 

Vittoria reached the Castle of Sonnenberg about noon, and 
found empty courts and open doors. She sat in the hall like 
a supplicant, disregarded by the German domestics, who be¬ 
held a travel-stained humble-faced young Italian woman, 
and supposed that their duty was done in permitting her to 
rest; but the duchess’s maid Aennchen happening to come 
by, questioned her in moderately intelligible Italian, and 
hearing her name gave a cry, and said that all the company 
were out hunting, shooting, and riding, in the vale below or 
the mountain above. “ Ah, dearest lady, what a fright we 
have all been in about you! Signora Piaveni has not slept 
a wink, and the English gentleman has made great excur¬ 
sions every day to find you. This morning the soldier 
Wilhelm arrived with neAvs that his master was bringing 
you on.” 

Vittoria heard that Laura and her sister and the duchess 
had gone down to Meran. Countess Lena von Lenkenstein 
was riding to see her betrothed shoot on a neighbouring 
estate. Countess Anna had disappeared early, none knew 
Avhere. Both these ladies, and their sister-in-law, Avere in 
mourning for the terrible death of their brother. Count 
Paul. Aennchen repeated what she kneAv of the tale con¬ 
cerning him. 

The desire to see Laura first, and be embraced and coun¬ 
selled by her, and lie awhile in her arms to get a breath of 
home, made Vittoria refuse to go up to her chamber, and 
notwithstanding Aennchen’s persuasions, she left the castle, 
and went out and sat in the shaded cart-track. On the 
Avinding ascent she saAv a lady in a black riding habit, lead¬ 
ing her horse and talking to a soldier, who seemed to be 
receiving orders from her, and presently saluted and turned 
his steps downAvard. '^Tie lady came on, and passed her 
Avithout a glance. After entering the court-yard, Avhere she 
left her horse, she reappeared, and stood hesitating, but 
came up to Vittoria and said bluntly, in Italian; — 


256 


VITTORIA. 


“ Are yon the Signorina Campa, or Belloni, who is ex¬ 
pected here ?” 

The Austrian character and colouring of her features told 
Vittoria that this must be the Countess Anna or her sister. 

“ I think I have been expected,” she replied. 

You come alone ?” 

“ I am alone.” 

“ I am Countess Anna von Lenkenstein; one of the guests 
of the castle.” 

“ My message is to the Countess Anna.” 

“You have a message ?” 

Vittoria lifted the embroidered cigar-case. Countess 
Anna snatched it from her hand. 

“What does this mean? Is it insolence? Have the 
kindness, if you please, not to address me in enigmas. Do 
you ”—Anna was deadly pale as she turned the cigar-case 
from side to side—“ do you imagine that I smoke, par 
hasard ?” She tried to laugh off her intemperate manner of 
speech; the laugh broke at sight of a blood-mark on one 
corner of the case; she started and said earnestly, “ I beg 
you to let me hear what the meaning of this may be ?” 

“ He lies in the Ultenthal, wounded ; and his wish was 
that I should deliver it to you.” Vittoria spoke as gently 
as the harsh tidings would allow. 

“ Wounded ? My God ! my God!” Anna cried in her own 
language. “Wounded?—in the breast, then! He carried 
it in his breast. Wounded by what ? by what ?” 

“ I can tell you no more.” 

“ Wounded by whom ?” 

“ It was an honourable duel.” 

“ Are you afraid to tell me he has been assassinated 

“ It was an honourable duel.” 

“ None could match him with the sword.” 

“His enemy had nothing but a dagger.” 

“ Who was his enemy ?” 

“ It is no secret, but I must leave him to say.” 

“ You were a witness of the fight ?” 

“ I saw it all.” 

“ The man was one of your party 1” 

“ Ah !” exclaimed Vittoria, “ lose no time with me. Countess 
Anna go to him at once, for though he lived when I left him, 


A NEW OKDEAL. 257 

he was bleeding; I cannot say that be was not dying, and he 
has not a friend near.” 

Anna murmured like one overborne by calamity. “ My 
brother struck dowm one day—he the next!” She covered 
her face a moment, and unclosed it to explain that slie 
wept for her brother, who had been murdered, stabbed in 
Bologna. 

“Was it Count Ammiani who did this?” she asked 
passionately. 

Vittoria shook her head; she was divining a dreadful 
thing in relation to the death of Count Paul. 

“ It was not ?” said Anna. “ They had a misunderstand¬ 
ing, I know. But you tell me the men fought with a dagger. 
It could not be Count Ammiani. The dagger is an assassin’s 
weapon, and there are men of honour in Italy still.” 

She called to a servant in the castle-yard, and sent him 
down with orders to stop the soldier Wilhelm. 

“We heard this morning that you were coming, and we 
thought it curious,” she observed ; and called again for her 
horse to be saddled. “ How far is this place where he is 
lying ? I have no knowledge of the Ultenthal. Has he a 
doctor attending him ? When was he wounded ? It is but 
common humanity to see that he is attended by an efficient 
doctor. My nerves are unstrung by the recent blow to our 

family; that is why- Oh, my father ! my holy father !” 

she turned to a grey priest’s head that was rising up the 
ascent, “ I thank God for you ! Lena is away riding ; she 
weeps constantly when she is within four walls. Come in 
and give me tears, if you can; I am half mad for the want 
of them. Tears first; teach me patience after.” 

The old priest fanned his face with his curled hat, and 
raised one hand as he uttered a gentle chiding in reproof of 
curbless human sorrow. Anna said to Vittoria, coldly, “ I 
thank you for your message she walked into the castle by 
his side, and said to him there : “ The woman you saw out¬ 
side has a guilty conscience. You will spend your time more 
profitably with her than with me. I am past all religious 
duties at this moment. You know, father, that I can open 
my heart. Probe this Italian woman ; search her through 
and through. I believe her to be blood-stained and abomi¬ 
nable. She hates us. She has sworn an oath against us. 
She is malignant.” 


6 



258 


VITTOT^IA. 


It was not long before Anna issued forth and rode down 
bo the vale. The priest beckoned to Vittoria from the gates. 
He really supposed her to have come to him with a bur¬ 
dened spirit. 

“ My daughter,” he addressed her. The chapter on human 
error was opened:—“We are all of one family—all of us 
erring children—all of us bound to abnegate hatred : by love 
alone are we saved. Behold the Image of Love—the Virgin 
and Child. Alas ! and has it been visible to man these more 
than eighteen hundred years, and humankind are still blind 
to it ? Are their ways the ways of comfort and blessedness ? 
Their ways are the ways of blood ; paths to eternal misery 
among howling fiends. Why have they not chosen the 
sweet ways of peace, which are strewn with flowers, which 
flow with milk ?”—The priest spread his hand open for Vit- 
toria’s, which she gave to his keeping, and he enclosed it 
softly, smoothing it with his palms, and retaining it as a 
worldly oyster between spiritual shells. “ Why, my daughter, 
why, but because we do not bow to that image daily, nightly, 
hourly, momently! We do not worship it that its seed may 
be sown in us. We do not cling to it, that in return it may 
cling to us.” 

He spoke with that sensuous resource of rich feeling 
which the contemplation of the Image docs inspire. And 
Vittoria was not led reluctantly into the oratory of the 
castle to pray with him ; but she refused to confess. There¬ 
upon followed a soft discussion that was as near being acerb 
as nails are near velvet paws. 

Vittoria perceived his drift, and also the dear good heart 
of the old man, Avho meant no harm to her, and believed that 
he was making use of his professional weapons for her 
ultimate good. The inquisitions and the kindness went 
musically together ; she responded to the kindness, but 
rebutted the inquisitions; at which he permitted a shade of 
discontent to traverse his features, and asked her with 
immense tenderness vdiether she had not much on her mind; 
she expressing melodious gratitude for his endeavours to give 
her comfort. He could not forbear directing an admonish¬ 
ment to her stubborn spirit, and was obliged, for the sake of 
impressiveness, to speak it harshly; until he saw that, with¬ 
out sweetness of manner and unction of speech, he left her 
untouched; so he was driven back to the form of address 


A NEW OEDEAL. 


259 


better suited to bis nature and habits ; the end of which was 
that both were cooing. 

Vittoria was ashamed to tell herself how much she liked 
him and his ghostly brethren, whose preaching was always 
of peace, while the world was full of lurid hatred, strife, and 
division. She begged the badled old man to keep her hand 
in his. He talked in Latinized Italian, and only appeared to 
miss the exact meaning of her replies when his examination 
of the state of her soul was resumed. They sat in the soft 
colour of the consecrated place like two who were shut away 
from earth. Often he thought that her tears were about to 
start and bring her low ; for she sighed heavily; at the 
mere indication of the displacement of her hand, she looked 
at him eagerly, as if entreating him not to let it drop. 

“ You are a German, father ?’ she said. 

“ I am of German birth, my daughter.” 

“ That makes it better. Remain beside me. The silence 
is sweet music.” 

The silence was broken at intervals by his murmur of a 
call for patience ! patience ! 

This strange scene concluded with the entry of the duchess, 
W'ho retired partly as soon as she saw them. Vittoria 
smiled to the old man, and quitted his side : the duchess 
gave her a hushed welcome, and took her place. Vittoria 
was soon in Laura’s arms, where, after a storm of grief, 
she related the events of the journey following her flight 
from Milan. Laura interrupted her but once to exclaim, 
“Angelo Guidascarpi! ” Vittoria then heard from her 
briefly that Milan was quiet. Carlo Ammiani in prison. It 
had been for tidings of her lover that she had hastened over 
the mountains to Meran. She craved for all that could be 
told of him, but Laura repeated, as in a stupefaction, 
“ Angelo Guidascarpi !” She answered Vittoria’s question 
by saying, “ You could not have had so fatal a companion.” 

“ I could not have had so devoted a protector.” 

“ There is such a thing as an evil star. V’^e are all under 
it at present, to some degree ; but he has been under it from 
his birth. My Sandra, my beloved, I think I have pardoned 
you, if I ever pardon any one ! I doubt it; but it is certain 
that I love you. You have seen Countess Anna, or I would 
have told you to rest and get over your fatigue. The Len- 
kensteins are here—my poor sister among them. You 

s2 


260 


VITTORIA. 


must show yourself. I was provident enough to call at 
your mother’s for a box of your clothes before I ran out of 
wretched Milan.” 

Further, the signora stated that Carlo might have to 
remain in prison. She made no attempt to give dark or 
fair colour to the misery of the situation; telling Vittoria 
to lie on her bed and sleep, if sleep could be persuaded to 
visit her, she went out to consult with the duchess. Vittoria 
lay like a dead body on the bed, counting the throbs of her 
heart. It helped her to fall into a state of insensibility. 
When she awoke, the room was dark ; she felt that some 
one had put a silken cushion across her limbs. The noise 
of a storm traversing the vale rang through the castle, and 
in the desolation of her soul, that stealthy act of kindness 
wrought in her till she almost fashioned a vow upon her 
lips that she would leave the world to toss its wrecks, a^jd 
dedicate her life to God. 

For, 0 heaven! of what avail is human effort ? She 
thought of the Chief, whose life was stainless, but who stood 
proscribed because his aim was too high to be attained 
within compass of a mortal’s years. His error seemed that 
he had ever aimed at all. He seemed less wise than the old 
priest of the oratory. She could not disentagle him from 
her own profound humiliation and sense of fallen power. 
Her lover’s imprisonment accused her of some monstrous 
culpability, which she felt unrepentingly, not as we feel a 
truth, but as we submit to a terrible force of pressure. 

The morning light made her realize Carlo’s fate, to whom 
it would penetrate through a hideous barred loophole—a 
defaced and dreadful beam. She asked herself why she had 
fled from Milan. It must have been some cowardly instinct 
that had prompted her to fly. “ Coward, coward ! thing of 
vanity ! you, a mere woman !” she cried out, and succeeded 
in despisingdierself sufficiently to think it possible that she 
had deserved to forfeit her lover’s esteem. 

It was still early when the duchess’s maid came to her, 
bringing word that her mistress would be glad to visit her. 
From the duchess Vittoria heard of the charge against 
Angelo. Respecting Captain Weisspriess, Amalia said that 
she had perceived his object in wishing to bring the great 
cantatrice to the castle; and that it was a well-devised 
audacious scheme to subdue Countess Anna :—We Austrians 


A NEW ORDEAL. 


261 


also can be jealous. The difference between us is, that it 
makes us tender, and you Italians savage.” She asked 
pointedly for an affirmative, that Yittoria was glad to reply 
with, when she said: “Captain Weisspriess was perfectly 
respectful to you ?” She spoke comforting words of Carlo 
Ammiani, whom she hoped to see released as soon as the 
excitement had subsided. The chief comfort she gave was 
by saying that he had been originally arrested in mistake 
for his cousin Angelo. 

“ I will confide what is now my difficulty here frankly to 
you,” said the duchess. “The Lenkensteins are my guests ; 
I thought it better to bring them here. Angelo Guidascarpi 
has slain their brother—a base deed! It does not affect 
you in my eyes; you can understand that in theirs it does. 
Your being present—Laura has told me ever^dhing—at the 
duel, or fight, between that young man and Captain Weiss¬ 
priess, will make you appear as his accomplice—at least, to 
Anna it will; she is the most unreasoning, the most im¬ 
placable of women. She returned from the Ultenthal last 
night, and goes there this morning, 'which is a sign that 
Captain Weisspriess lives. I should be sorry if we lost so 
good an officer. As she is going to take Father Bernardus 
wdth her, it is possible that the wound is serious. Do you 
know you have mystified the worthy man exceedingly ? 
What tempted you to inform him that your conscience was 
heavily burdened, at the same time that you refused to 
confess ?” 

“ Surely he has been deluded about me,” said Yittoria. 

“ I do but tell you his state of mind in regard to you,” 
the duchess pursued. “ Under all the circumstances, this 
is what I have to ask: you are my Laura’s guest, therefore 
the guest of my hearL There is another one here, an 
Englishman, a Mr. Powys; and also Lieutenant Pierson, 
whom, naughty rebel that you are, you have been the means 
of bringing into disgrace; naturally you would wish to see 
them: but my request is, that you should keep to these 
rooms for two or three days : the Lenkensteins will then be 
gone. They can hardly reproach me for retaining an invalid. 
If you go down among them, it will be a cruel meeting.” 

Yittoria thankfully consented to the arrangement. They 
agreed to act in accordance with it. 

The signora was a late riser. The duchess had come on 


2G2 


VITTORIA. 


a second visit to Vittoria when Laura joined them, and 
hearing of the arrangement, spurned the notion of playing 
craven before the Lenkensteins, who, she said, might think 
as it pleased them to think, but were never to suppose that 
there was any fear of confronting them. “ And now, at this 
very moment, when they have their triumph, and are laugh¬ 
ing over Viennese squibs at her, she has an idea of hiding her 
head—she hangs out the white flag ! It can’t be. We go or we 
stay; but if we stay, the truth is that we are too poor to allow 
our enemies to think poorly of us. You, Amalia, are victorious, 
and you may snap your fingers at opinion. It is a luxury 
we cannot afford. Besides, I wish her to see my sister and 
make acquaintance with the Austrianized Italian—such a 
wonder as is nowhere to be seen out of the Serabiglione 
and in the Lenkenstein family. Marriage is, indeed, a 
tremendous transformation. Bianca was once declared to 
be very like me.” 

The brow-beaten duchess replied to the outburst that she 
had considered it right to propose the scheme for Vittoria’s 
seclusion on account of the Guidascarpi. 

“ Even if that were a good reason, there are better on the 
other side,” said Laura; adding, with many little backward 
tosses of the head, “ that story has to be related in full 
before I denounce Angelo and Rinaldo.” 

“ It cannot be denied that they are assassins,” returned 
the duchess. 

“ It cannot be denied that they have killed one man or 
more. For you. Justice drops from the bough : we have to 
climb and risk our necks for it. Angelo stood to defend my 
darling here. Shall she be ashamed of him ?” 

“ You will never persuade me to tolerate assassination,” 
said the duchess colouring. 

“Never, never; I shall never persuade you; never per¬ 
suade— never attempt to persuade any foreigner that we 
can be driven to extremes where their laws do not apply to 
us—are not good for us—goad a subjected people till their 
madness is pardonable. Nor shall I dream of persuading 
you that Angelo did right in defending her from that man.” 

“ I maintain that there are laws applicable to all human 
creatures,” said the duchess. “ You astonish me when you 
speak compassionately of such a criminal.” 

“No; not of such a criminal, of. such an unfortunate 


A NEW ORDEAL. 


263 


youth, and my countryman, when every hand is turned 
against him, and all tongues are reviling him. But let 
Angelo pass ; I pray to heaven he may escape. All who 
are worth anything in our country are strained in every 
fibre, and it’s my trick to be half in love with any one of 
them when he is persecuted. I fancy he is worth more than 
the others, and is simply luckless. You must make allow¬ 
ances for us, Amalia—pity captive Judah !” 

“ I think, my Laura, you will never be satisfied till I have 
ceased to be Babylonian,” said the duchess, smiling and 
fondling Yittoria, to whom she said, “ Am I not a com¬ 
plaisant German ?” 

Yittoria replied gently, “ If they were like you !’* 

“Yes, if they were like the duchess,” said Laura, “nothing 
would be left for us then but to hate ourselves. Fortunately, 
we deal with brutes.” 

She was quite pitiless in prompting Yittoria to hasten 
down, and marvelled at the evident reluctance in doing this 
slight duty, of one whose courage she had recently seen rise 
so high. Yittoria was equally amazed by her want of 
sympathy, which was positive coldness, and her disregard 
for the sentiments of her hostess. She dressed hesitatingly, 
responding with forlorn eyes to Laura’s imperious “ Come.” 
When at'last she was ready to descend, Laura took her 
down, full of battle. The duchess had gone in advance to 
keep the peace. 

The ladies of the Lenkenstein family were standing at 
one window of the morning room conversing. Apart from 
them, Merthyr Powys and Wilfrid were examining one of 
the cumbrous antique arms ranged along the wall. The 
former of these old English friends stepped up to Yittoria 
quickly and kissed her forehead. Wilfrid hung behind 
him; he made a poor show of indifference, stammered 
English and reddened; remembering that he was under 
observation he recovered wonderfully, and asked, like a 
patron, “ How is the voice ?” which would have been foolish 
enough to Yittoria’s more attentive hearing. She thanked 
him for the service he had rendered her at La Scala. 
Countess Lena, who looked hard at both, saw nothing to 
waken one jealous throb. 

“ Bianca, you expressed a wish to give a salute to my 
eldest daughter,” said Laura. 


2G4 


VITTOKIA. 


Tho Countess of Lenkenstein turned lier head. “ Have I 
done so ?” 

“ It is my duty to introduce her,” interposed the duchess, 
and conducted the ceremony with a show of its embracing 
these ladies, neither one of whom changed her cold gaze. 

Careful that no pause should follow, she commenced chat¬ 
ting to the ladies and gentlemen alternately, keeping Vittoria 
under her peculiar charge. Merthyr alone seconded her 
efforts to weave the web of converse, which is an armistice 
if not a treaty on these occasions. 

“ Have you any fresh caricatures from Vienna ?” Laura 
continued to address her sister. 

“ ISTone have reached me,” said the neutral countess, 

“ Have they finished laughing ?” 

“ I cannot tell.” 

“ At any rate, we sing still,” Laura smiled to Vittoria. 
“ You shall hear us after breakfast. I regret excessively 
that you were not in Milan on the Fifteenth. We will make 
amends to you as much as possible. You shall hear us after 
breakfast. You will sing to please my sister, Sandra mia, 
will you not ?” 

Vittoria shook her head. Like those who have become 
passive, she read faces—the duchess’s imploring looks 
thrown from time to time to the Lenkenstein ladies, Wilfrid’s 
oppressed forehead, the resolute neutrality of the countess— 
and she was not only incapable of seconding Laura’s aggres¬ 
sive war, but shrank from the involvement and sickened at 
the indelicacy. Anna’s eyes were fixed on her and filled her 
with dread lest she should be resolving to demand a private 
interview. 

“ You refuse to sing ?” said Laura; and under her breath, 
** when I bid you not, you insist!” 

“ Can she possibly sing before she grows accustomed to 
the air of the place ?” said the duchess. 

Merthyr gravely prescribed a week’s diet on grapes ante¬ 
cedent to the issuing of a note. “ Have you never heard 
what a sustained grape-diet will do for the bullfinches ?” 

“ JSTever,” exclaimed the duchess. “ Is that the secret of 
their German education ?” 

“ Apparently, for we cannot raise them to the same pitch 
of perfection in England.’* 


A NEW ORDEAL. 265 

“ I will try it upon mine. Every morning they shall have 
two big bunches.” 

“ Fresh plucked, and with the first sunlight on them. Be 
careful of the rules.” 

Wilfrid remarked, “ To make them exhibit the results, 
you withdraw the benefit suddenly, of course 

“We imitate the general run of Fortune’s gifts as much 
as we can,” said Merthyr. 

“ That is the training for little shrill parrots : we have 
none in Italy,” Laura sighed, mock dolefully; “ I fear the 
system would fail among us.” 

“ It certainly would not build Como villas,” said Lena. 

Laura cast sharp eyes on her pretty face. 

“ It is adapted for caged voices that are required to 
chirrup to tickle the ears of boors.” 

Anna said to the duchess : “ I hope your little birds are 
all well this morning.” 

“ Come to them presently with me and let our ears be 
tickled,” the duchess laughed in answer; and the spiked 
dialogue broke, not to revive. 

The duchess had observed the constant direction of Anna’s 
eyes upon Vittoria during the repast, and looked an inter¬ 
rogation at Anna, who replied to it firmly. “ I must be 
present,” the duchess whispered. She drew Vittoria away 
by the hand, telling Merthyr Powys that it w^as unkind to 
him, but that he should be permitted to claim his fair friend 
from noon to the dinner-bell. 

Laura and Bianca w^ere discussing the same subject as the 
one for which Anna desired an interview with Vittoria. It 
was to know the conditions and cause of the duel between 
Angelo Guidascaz’pi and Captain Weisspriess, and whither 
Angelo had fled. “ In other words, you cry for vengeance 
under the name of justice,” Laura phrased it, and put up a 
prayer for Angelo’s escape. 

The countess rebuked her. “ It is men like Angelo wJio 
are a scandal to Italy.” 

“ Proclaimed so; but by what title are they judged ?” 
Laura retorted. “ I have heard that his duel with Count 
Paul was fair, and that the grounds for it were just. 
Deplore it; but to condemn an Italian gentleman without 
hearing his personal vindication, is infamous; nay, it is 
Austrian. I know next to nothing of the story. Countess 


266 


VITTOKIA. 


Ammiani has assured me that the brothers have a clear 
defence—not from your Vienna point of view: Italy and 
Vienna are different sides of the shield.” 

Vittoyia spoke most humbly before Anna; her sole irri¬ 
tating remark was, that even if she were aware of the direc¬ 
tion of Angelo’s flight, she would not betray him. 

The duchess did her utmost to induce her to see that he was 
a criminal, outlawed from common charity. These Italians 
are really like the Jews,” she said to Anna ; “ they appear to 
me to hold together by a bond of race: you cannot get them 
to understand that any act can be infamous when one of 
their blood is guilty of it.” 

Anna thought gloomily : “ Then, why do you ally yourself 
to them ?” 

The duchess, with Anna, Lena, and Wilfrid, drove to the 
Ultenthal. Vittoria and Merthyr had a long afternoon of 
companionship. She had been shyer in meeting him than in 
meeting Wilfrid, whom she had once loved. The tie between 
herself and Wilfrid was broken; but Merthyr had remained 
true to his passionless affection, which ennobled him to her 
so that her heart fluttered, though she was heavily depressed. 
He relieved her by letting her perceive that Carlo Am- 
miani’s merits were not unknown to him. Merthyr smiled at 
Carlo for abjuring his patrician birth. He said : “ Count 
Ammiani will be cured in time of those little roughnesses of 
his adopted Republicanism. You must help to cure him. 
Women are never so foolish as men in these things.” 

When Merthyr had spoken thus, she felt that she might 
dare to press his hand. Sharing friendship with this stead¬ 
fast nature and brotherly gentleman; who was in the ripe 
manhood of his years ; who loved Italy and never despaired; 
who gave great affection, and took uncomplainingly the pos¬ 
sible return for it;—seemed like entering on a great plain 
open to boundless heaven. She thought that friendship was. 
sweeter than love. Merthyr soon left the castle to meet his 
sister at Coire. Laura and Vittoria drove some distance 
up the Vintschgau, on the way to the Engadine, with him. 
He affected not to be downcast by the failure of the last 
attempt at a rising in Milan. “ Keep true to your Art; and 
don’t let it be subservient to anything,” he said, and his final 
injunction to her was that she should get a German master 
and practise rigidly. 


A NEW ORDEAL. 


2G7 


Vittoria could only look at Laura in reply. 

“ He is for us, but not of us,” said Laura, as she kissed ber 
fingers to him. 

“ If he had told me to weep and pray,” Yittoria murmured, 
“I think I should by-and-by lift up my head.” 

“ By-and-by! By-and-by I think I see a convent for 
me,” said Laura. 

Their faces drooped. 

Yittoria cried ; “ Ah ! did he mean that my singing at La 
Scala was below the mark ?” 

At this, Laura’s laughter came out in a volume. “ And 
that excellent Father Bernardus thinks he is gaining a con¬ 
vert !” she said. 

Yittoria’s depression was real, though her strong vitality 
appeared to mock it. Letters from Milan, enclosed to the 
duchess, spoke of Carlo Ammiani’s imprisonment as a matter 
that might be indefinitely prolonged. His mother liad been 
subjected to an examination ; she had not hesitated to confess 
that she had received her nephew in her house, but it could 
not be established against her that it was not Carlo whom 
she had passed olf to the sbirri as her son. Countess Am- 
miaui wrote to Laura, telling her she scarcely hoped that 
Carlo would obtain his liberty save upon the arrest of Angelo: 
—“ Therefore, what I most desire, I dare not pray for!” 
That line of intense tragic grief haunted Yittoria like a 
veiled head thrusting itself across the sunlight. Countess 
Ammiani added that she must give her son what news she 
could gather;—“ Concerning you'' said Laura, intei’preting 
the sentence : “ Bitter days do this good, they make a proud 
woman abjure the traditions of her caste.” A guarded 
answer was addressed, according to the cbuntess’s directions, 
to Sarpo the bookseller, in Milan. For purposes of such a 
nature, Barto Riz^o turned the uneasy craven to account. 

It happened that one of the maids at Sonnenberg was 
about to marry a peasant of Meran, part pi*oprietor of a 
vineyard, and the nuptials were to be celebrated at the 
castle. Among those who thronged the courtyard on the 
afternoon of the ceremony, Yittoria beheld her faithful 
Beppo, who related the story of his pursuit of her, and the 
perfidy of Luigi; — a story so lengthy, that his voluble 
tongue running at full speed could barely give the outlines 
of it. He informed her, likewise, that he had been sent for, 


268 


VITTORIA. 


while lying in Trent, by Captain Weisspriess, whom he had 
seen at an inn of the Ultenthal, weak but improving. Beppo 
was the captain’s propitiatory offering to Vittoria. Mean¬ 
while the ladies sat on a terrace, overlooking the court, where 
a stout fellow in broad green braces and blue breeches lay 
half ^ across a wooden table, thrumming a zither, which set 
the groups in motion. The zither is a melancholy little 
instrument; in range of expression it is to the harp what 
the winchat is to the thrush; or to the violin, what that 
bird is to the nightingale ;• yet few instruments are so 
exciting: here and there along these mountain valleys you 
may hear a Tyrolese maid set her voice to its plaintive thin 
tones; but when the strings are swept madly there is mad 
dancing; it catches at the nerves. “Andreas! Andreas!” 
the dancers shouted to encourage the player. Some danced 
with vine-poles ; partners broke and wandered at will, taking 
fresh partners, and occasionally huddling in confusion, when 
the poles Avere levelled and tilted at them, and they dispersed. 
Beppo, dancing mightily to recover the use of his legs, met 
his acquaintance Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz, and the pair 
devoted themselves to a rivalry of capers; jump, stamp, 
shuffle, leg aloft, arms in air, yell and shriek: all took hands 
around them and streamed, tramping the measure, and the 
vine-poles guarded the ring. Then Andreas raised the song: 
“ Our Lady is gracious,” and immediately the whole assem¬ 
blage were singing praise to the Lady of the castle. FoIIoav- 
ing which, wine being brought to Andreas, he drank to his 
lady, to his lady’s guests, to the bride, to the bridegroom,— 
to everybody. He was now ready to improvize, and dashed 
thumb and finger on the zither, tossing up his face, swarthy- 
flushed: “ There was a steinbock Avith a beard.” Half-a- 
dozen voices repeated it, as to proclaim the theme. 

“ Alas ! a beard indeed, for there is no end to this animal. 
I know him;” said the duchess dolefully. 

“ Tliere Avas a steinbock with a beard ; 

Of no ^un was he afeard : 

Piff-paff left of him : piff-paff right of him : 

Piff-paff everywhere, wfiere you get a sight of him.’* 

The steinbock led through the whole course of a moun¬ 
taineer’s emotions and experiences, with piff-patf continually 
left of him and right of him and nothing hitting him. The 


A NEW ORDEAL. 


2G9 


mountaineer is perplexed; an able man, a dead sbot, who 
I must undo the puzzle or lose faith in his skill, is a tremendous 
pursuer, and the mountaineer follows the steinbock ever. A 
sennderin at a sennhiitchen tells him that she admitted the 
steinbock last -night, and her curled hair frizzled under the 
steinbock’s eyes. The case is only too clear: my goodness ! 

the steinbock is the-. “Der Teu. . . . !” said Andreas, 

with a comic stop of horror, the rhyme falling cleverly to 
“a^.” Henceforth the mountaineer becomes transformed into 
a champion of humanity, hunting the wicked bearded stein¬ 
bock in all corners; especially through the cabinet of those 
dark men who decree the taxes detested in Tyrol. 

The song had as yet but fairly commenced, when a break 
in the ‘ piff-paff ’ chorus warned Andreas that he was losing 
influence, women and men were handing on a paper and 
bending their heads over it; their responses hushed alto¬ 
gether, or were ludicrously inefficient. 

“ I really believe the poor brute has come to a Christian 
finish—this Ahasuerus of steinbocks !” said the duchess. 

The transition to silence was so extraordinary and abrupt, 
that she called to her chasseur to know the meaning of it. 
Feckelwitz fetched the paper and handed it up. It exhibited 
a cross done in blood under the word ‘ Meran,’ and bearing 
that day’s date. One glance at it told Laura what it meant. 
The bride in the court below was shedding tears: the bride¬ 
groom was lighting his pipe and consoling her: women were 
chattering, men shrugging. Some said they had seen an old 
grey-haired hag (hexe) stand at the gates and fling down a 
piece of paper. A little boy whose imagination was alive 
with the tale of the steinbock, declared that her face was 
awful, and that she had only the use of one foot. A man 
patted him on the shoulder, and gave him a gulp of wine, 
saying with his shrewdest air: One may laugh at the devil 
once too often, though!” and that sentiment was echoed; 
the women suggested in addition the possibility of the bride 
Lisa having something on her conscience, seeing that she 
had lived in a castle two years and more. The potential 
persuasions of Father Bernardus were required to get the 
bride to go away to her husband’s roof that evening: when 
she did make her departure, the superstitious peasantry were 
not a merry party that followed at her heels. 

At the break-up of the festivities Wilfrid received an inti- 




270 


VITTORIA. 


mation that his sister had arrived in Meran from Bormio. 
He went down to see her, and returned at a late hour. The 
ladies had gone to rest. He Tvrote a few underlined words, 
entreating Yittoria to grant an immediate interview in the 
library of the castle. The missive was entrusted to Aennchen. 
Yittoria came in alarm. 

“My sister is perfectly well,” said Wilfrid. “She has 
heard that Captain Gambler has been arrested in the moun¬ 
tains ; she had some fears concerning you, which I quieted. 
What I have to tell you, does not relate to her. The man 
Angelo Guidascarpi is in Meran. I wish you to let the 
signora know that if he is not carried out of the city before 
sunset to-morrow, I must positively inform the superior 
officer of the district of his presence there.” 

This was their first private interview. Yittoria (for she 
knew him) had acceded to it, much fearing that it would 
lead to her having to put on her sex’s armour. To collect 
her wits, she asked tremblingly how Wilfrid had chanced to 
see Angelo. An old Italian woman, he said, had accosted 
him at the foot of the mountain, and hearing that he was 
truly an Englishmen—“ I am out of my uniform,” Wilfrid 
remarked with intentional bitterness—had conducted him to 
the house of an Italian in the city, where Angelo Guidascarpi 
was lying. 

“ Ill ?” said Yittoria. 

“ Just recovering. After that duel, or whatever it may 
be called, with Weisspriess, he lay all night out on the 
mountains. He managed to get the help of a couple of 
fellows, who led him at dusk into Meran, saw an Italian 
name over a shop, and—I will say for them that the rascals 
hold together. There he is, at all events.” 

“Would you denounce a sick man, Wilfrid ?” 

“ I certainly cannot forget my duty upon every point.” 

“ You are changed !” 

“ Changed ! Am I the only one who is changed ?” 

“ He must have supposed that it would be Merthyr. I 
remember speaking of Merthyr to him as our unchangeable 
friend. I told him Merthyr would be here.” 

“ Instead of Merthyr, he had the misfortune to see your 
changeable friend, if you will have it so.” » 

“But how can it be your duty to denounce him, Wilfrid. 
You have quitted that army.” 


A NEW ORDEAL. 


271 


“ IlaTG I ? I have forfeited my rank, perhaps.” 

“ And Angelo is not guilty of a military offence.” 

“ He has slain one of a family that I am bound to respect.” 

“ Certainly, certainly,” said Yittoria hurriedly. 

Her forehead showed distress of mind; she wanted Laura’s 
counsel. 

“ Wilfrid, do you know the whole story ?” 

“ I know that he inveigled Count Paul to his house and 
slew him; either he or his brother, or both.” 

“I have been with him for days, Wilfrid. I believe that 
he would do no dishonourable thing. He is related-” 

“He is the cousin of Count Ammiani.” 

“ Ah ! would you plunge us in misery ?” 

“How ?” 

“ Count Ammiani is my lover.” 

She uttered it unblushingly, and with tender eyes fixed 
on him. 

“ Your lover! ” he exclaimed, with vile emphasis. 

“ He will be my husband,” she murmured, while the 
mounting hot colour burned at her temples. 

“ Changed—who is changed ? ” he said, in a vehement 
underneath. “ For that reason I am to be false to her who 
does me the honour to care for me 1 ” 

“ I would not have you false to her in thought or deed.” 

“ You ask me to spare this man on account of his relation¬ 
ship to your lover, and though he has murdered the brother 
of the lady whom I esteem. What on earth is the meaning 
of the petition ? Really, you amaze me.” 

“I appeal to your generosity, Wilfrid. I am Emilia.” 

“ Are you ? ” 

She gave him her hand. He took it, and felt at once the 
limit of all that he might claim. Dropping the hand, he 
said :— 

“ Will nothing less than my ruin satisfy you? Since that 
night at La Scala, I am in disgrace with my uncle ; I expect 
at any moment to hear that I am cashiered from the army, 
if not a prisoner. What is it that you ask of me now ? To 
conspire with you in shielding the man who has done a 
mortal injury to the family of w^hich I am almost one. 
Your reason must perceive that you ask too much. 1 would 
willingly assist you in sparing the feelings of Count 
Ammiani; and, believe me, gratitude is the last thing I 



272 


VITTORIA. 


require to stimulate my services. You ask too muck ; you 
must see that you ask too much.” 

“ I do,” said Yittoria. “ Good night, Wilfrid.” 

He was startled to find her going, and lost his equable 
voice in trying to detain her. She sought relief in Laura’s 
bosom, to whom she recapitulated the interview. 

“ Is it possible,” Laura said, looking at her intently, “ that 
you do not recognize the folly of telling this Lieutenant 
Pierson that you were pleading to him on behalf of your 
lover? Could anything be so monstrous, when one can see 
that he is malleable to the twist of your little finger ? Are 
you only half a woman, that you have no consciousness of 
your power ? Probably you can allow yourself—enviable 
privilege !—to suppose that he called you down at this late 
hour simply to inform you that he is compelled to do some¬ 
thing which will cause you unhappiness ! I repeat, it is an 
enviable privilege. Now, when the real occasion has come 
for you to serve us, you have not a single weapon—except 
these tears, which you are wasting on my lap. Be sure that 
if he denounces Angelo, Angelo’s life cries op.t against you. 
You have but to quicken your brain to save him. Did he 
expose his life for you or not ? I knew that he was in 
]\Ieran,” the signora continued sadly. “ The paper which 
frightened the silly peasants, revealed to me that he was 
there, needing help. I told you Angelo was under an evil 
star. I thought my day to-morrow would be a day of 
scheming. The task has become easy, if you will.” 

“ Be merciful; the task is dreadful,” said Yittoria.—“ The 
task is simple. You have an instrument ready to your 
hands. You can do just what you like with him—make an 
Italian of him ; make him renounce his engagement to this 
pert little Lena of Lenkenstein, break his sword, play 
Arlecchino, do what you please. He is not required for any 
outrageous performance. A week, and Angelo will have 
i-ecovered his strength; you likewise may resume the 
statuesque demeanour which you have been exhibiting here. 
For the space of one week you are asked for some natural 
exercise of your wits and compliancy. Hitherto what have 
you accomplished, pray ? ” Laura struck spitefully at Yit- 
toria’s degraded estimation of her worth as measured by 
events. “ You have done nothing—worse than nothing. It 
gives me horrors to find it necessary to entreat you to 


A NEW ORDEAL. 


273 


loolc your duty in the face and do it, that even three or 
four Italian hearts—Carlo among them—may thank you. 
Not Carlo, you say?” (Yittoria had sobbed, “No, not 
Carlo.”) “ How little you know men! How little do you 
reflect how the obligations of the hour should affect a crea¬ 
ture deserving life I Do you fancy that Carlo wishes you to 
be for ever reading the line of a copy-book and shaping your 
conduct by it ? Our Italian girls do this ; he despises them. 
Listen to me ; do not I know what is meant by the truth 
of love ? I pass through fire, and keep constant to it; 
but you have some vile Romance of Chivalry in your 
head; a modern sculptor’s figure, ‘ Meditation ;’ that is the 
sort of bride you would give him in the stirring days of 
Italy. Do you think it is only a statue that can be true ? 
Perceive—will you not—that this Lieutenant Pierson is your 
enemy. He tells you as much ; surely the challenge is 
fair ? Defeat him as you best can. Angelo shall not be 
abandoned.” 

“O me! it is unendurable; you are merciless,” said Yit¬ 
toria, shuddering. 

She saw the vile figure of herself aping smirks and tender 
meanings to her old lover. It was a picture that she dared 
not let her mind rest on : how then could she personate it? 
All through her life she had been frank ; as a young woman, 
she was clear of soul; she felt that her simplicity was 
already soiled by the bare comprehension of the abominable 
course indicated by Laura. Degradation seemed to have 
been a thing up to this moment only dreamed of; but now 
that it was demanded of her to play coquette and trick her 
womanhood with false allurements, she knew the sentiment 
of utter ruin; she was ashamed. No word is more lightly 
spoken than shame. Yittoria’s early devotion to her Art, and 
subsequently to her Italy, had carried her through the term 
when she would otherwise have showed the natural mild 
attack of the disease. It came on her now in a rush, pene¬ 
trating every chamber of her heart, overwhelming her* she 
could see no distinction between being ever so little false 
and altogether despicable. She had loathings of her body 
and her life. With grovelling difficulty of speech she endea¬ 
voured to convey the sense of her repugnance to Laura, who 
leaned her ear, wondering at such bluntness of wit in a 
woman, and said, “ Are you quite deficient in the craft of 

T 


274 


VITTORIA# 


your sex, child ? You can, and yon will, gnard yourself ten 
times better when your aim is simply to subject him.” But 
this was not reason to a spirit writhing in the serpent-coil 


of fiery blushes. 

Vittoria said, “ I shall pity him so.” 

She meant she would pity Wilfrid in deluding him. It 
was a taint of the hypocrisy which comes with shame. 

The signora retorted: “ I can’t follow the action of your 
mind a bit.” 

Pity being a form of tenderness, Laura supposed that she 
would intuitively hate the man who compelled her to do 
what she abhorred. 

They spent the greater portion of the night in this debate. 


CHAPTER XXVIIL 

THE ESCAPE OP ANGELO. 

Yittoria knew better than Laura that the task was easy; 
she had but to override her aversion to the show of trifling 
with a dead passion ; and when she thought of Angelo lying 
helpless in the swarm of enemies, and that Wilfrid could 
consent to use his tragic advantage to force her to silly love- 
play, his selfishness wrought its reflection, so that she 
became sufficiently unjust to forget her marvellous personal 
influence over him. Even her tenacious sentiment concern- 
iner his white uniform was clouded. She very soon ceased 
to be shamefaced in her own fancy. At dawn she stood at 
her window looking across the valley of Meran, and felt the 
w^hole scene in a song of her heart, with the faintest recol¬ 
lection of her having passed through a tempest overnight. 
The warm Southern glow of the enfoliaged valley recalled 
her living Italy, and Italy her voice. She grew wakefully 
glad: it was her nature, not her mind, that had twisted in 
the convulsions of last night’s horror of shame. The chirp 
of healthy blood in full-flowing veins dispersed it; and as a 
tropical atmosphere is cleared by the hurricane, she lost her 
depression and went down among her enemies possessed by 
an inner delight, that was again of her nature, not of her 



THE ESCAPE OP ANGELO. 


275 


mmd. She took her gladness for a happy sign that she had 
power to rise buoyant above circumstances; and though 
aware that she was getting to see things in harsh outlines, 
she was unconscious of her haggard imagination. 

The Lenkensteins had projected to escape the blandish¬ 
ments of Vienna by residing during the winter in Venice, 
where Wilfrid and his sister were to be the guests of the 
countess :—a pleasant prospect that was dashed out by an 
official visit from Colonel Zofel of the Meran garrison, 
through whom it was known that Lieutenant Pierson, while 
enjoying his full liberty to investigate the charms of the 
neighbourhood, might not extend his excursions beyond a 
pedestrian day’s limit;—he was, in fact, under surveillance. 
The colonel formally exacted his word of honour that he 
would not attempt to pass the bounds, and explained to the 
duchess that the injunction was favourable to the lieutenant, 
as implying that he must be ready at any moment to receive 
the order to join his regiment. Wilfrid bowed with a proper 
soldierly submission. Respecting the criminal whom his 
men were pursuing, Colonel Zofel said that he was sparing 
no efforts to come on his traces ; he supposed, from what he 
had heard in the Ultenthal, that Guidascarpi was on his 
back somewhere within a short range of IMeran. Vittoria 
strained her ears to the colonel’s German; she fancied his 
communication to be that he suspected Angelo’s presence in 
Meran. 

The official part of his visit being terminated, the colonel 
addressed some questions to the duchess concerning the night 
of the famous Fifteenth at La Scala. He was an amateur, 
and spoke with enthusiasm of the reports of the new prima 
donna. The duchess perceived that he was asking for an 
introduction to the heroine of the night, and graciously said 
that perhaps that very prima donna would make amends to 
him for his absence on the occasion. Vittoria checked a 
movement of revolt in her frame. She cast an involuntary look 
at Wilfrid. “ How it begins,” she thought, and went to the 
piano : she had previously refused to sing. Wilfrid had to 
bend his head over his betrothed and listen to her whisper¬ 
ings. He did so, carelessly swaying his hand to the measure 
of the aria, with an increasing bitter comparison of the two 
voices. Lena persisted in talking ; she was indignant at his 
abandonment of the journey to Venice j she reproached him 

T 2 


276 


VITTOETA. 


as feeble, inconsiderate, indifferent. Then for an instant 
she would pause to hear the voice, and renew her assault. 
“ We ought to be thankful that she is not singing a song of 
death and destruction to us! The archduchess is coming 
to Venice. If you are presented to her and please her, and 
get the writs of naturalization prepared, you will be one of 
us completely, and your fortune is made. If you stay here 
•—why should you stay ? It is nothing but your uncle’s 
caprice. I am too angry to care for music. If you stay, 
you will earn my contempt. I will not be buried another 
week in such a place. I am tired of weeping. We all go to 
Venice: Captain Weisspriess follows us. We are to have 
endless Balls, an opera, a Court there—with whom am I to 
dance, pray, when I am out of mourning ? Am I to sit and 
govern my feet under a chair, and gaze like an imbecile 
nun ? It is too preposterous. I am betrothed to you ; I wish, 
I ivish to behave like a betrothed. The archduchess herself 
will laugh to see me chained to a chair. I shall have to 
reply a thousand times to ‘ Where is he ?’ What can I 
answer ? ‘ WouldnH come,’ will be the only true reply.” 

During this tirade, Vittoria was singing one of her old 
songs, well known to Wilfrid, which brought the vision of a 
foaming weir, and moonlight between the branches of -a great 
cedar-tree, and the lost love of his heart sitting by his side 
in the noising stillness. He was sure that she could be 
singing it for no one but for him. The leap taken by his 
spirit from this time to that, was shorter than, from the past 
back to the present. 

“You do not applaud,” said Lena, when the song had 
ceased. 

He murmured: “ I never do, in drawing-rooms.” 

“ A cantatrice expects it everywhere ; these creatures live 
on it.” 

“ I’ll tell her, if you like, what ive thought of it, when I 
take her down to my sister, presently.” 

“ Are you not to take me down ?” 

“ The etiquette is to hand her up to you.” 

“ No, no !” Lena insisted, in abhorrence of etiquette ; but 
'iV'ilfrid said pointedly that his sister’s feelings must be 
spared. “ Her husband is an animal: he is a millionaire 
city-of-London merchant; conceive him ! He has drunk 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO. 277 

liimself gouty on Port wine, and here he is for the grape- 
cure.” 

“ Ah! in that England of yours, women marry for wealth,” 
said Lena. 

“Yes, in your Austria they have a better motive,” he 
interpreted her sentiment. 

“ Say, in our Austria.” 

“ In our Austria, certainly.” 

“And with our holy religion?” 

“It is not yet mine.” 

“ It will be ?” She put the question eagerly. 

Wilfrid hesitated, and by his adept hesitation succeeded 
in throwing her off the jealous scent. 

“ Say that it will be, my Wilfrid !” 

“You must give me time.” 

“ This subject always makes you cold.” 

“ My own Lena!” 

“ Can I be, if we are doomed to be parted when we die ?” 

There is small space for compunction in a man’s heart 
when he is in Wilfrid’s state, burning with the revival of 
what seemed to him a superhnman attachment. He had no 
design to break his acknowledged bondage to Countess Lena, 
and answered her tender speech almost as tenderly. 

It never occurred to him, as he was walking down to 
Meran with Vittoria, that she could suppose him to be 
bartering to help rescue the life of a wretched man in return 
for soft confidential'looks of entreaty; nor did he reflect 
that, when cast on him, they might mean no more than the 
wish to move him for a charitable purpose. The complete¬ 
ness of her fascination was shown by his reading her entirely 
by his own emotions, so that a lowly-uttered word, or a 
wavering unwilling glance, made him think that she was 
subdued by the charm of the old days. 

“ Is it here ?” she said, stopping under the first Italian 
name she saw in the arcade of shops. 

“ How on earth have you guessed it ?” he asked, as¬ 
tonished. 

She told him to wait at the end of the arcade, and passed 
in. When she joined him again, she was downcast, fihoy 
went straight to Adela’s hotel, where the one thing which 
gave her animation was the hearing that Mr. feedley had 
met an English doctor there, and had placed himself in his 


278 


VITTORIA. 


hands. Adela dressed splendidly for her presentation to 
the duchess. Having done so, she noticed Vittoria’s de¬ 
pressed countenance and difficult breathing. She com¬ 
manded her to see the doctor. Vittoria consented, and 
made use of him. She could tell Laura confidently at night 
that Wilfrid would not betray Angelo, though she had not 
spoken one direct word to him on the subject. 

Wilfrid was peculiarly adept in the idle game he played. 
One who is intent upon an evil end is open to expose his 
plan. But he had none in view; he lived for the luxurious 
sensation of being near the woman who fascinated him, and 
who was now positively abashed when by his side. Adela 
suggested to him faintly—she believed it was her spon¬ 
taneous idea—that he might be making his countess jealous. 
He assured her that the fancy sprang from scenes which 
she remembered, and that she could have no idea of the 
l^ride of a highborn Austrian girl, who was incapable of 
conceiving jealousy of a person below her class. Adela 
replied that it was not his manner so much as Emilia’s 
which might arouse the suspicion; but she immediately 
a'ffected to appreciate the sentiments of a highborn Austrian 
girl toward a cantatrice, whose gifts we regard simply as 
an aristocratic entertainment. Wilfrid induced his sister 
to relate Vittoria’s early history to Countess Lena; and 
himself almost wondered, wffien he heard it in bare words, 
at that haunting vision of the glory of Vittoria at La Scala 
—where, as he remembered, he would have run against 
destruction to cling to her lips. Adela was at first alarmed 
by the concentrated wrathfulness which she discovered in 
the bosom of Countess Anna, who, as their intimacy waxed, 
spoke of the intruding opera siren in terms hardly proper 
even to married women; but it seemed right, as being pos¬ 
sibly aristocratic. Lena was much more tolerant. “ I have 
just the same enthusiasm for soldiers that my Wilfrid has 
for singers,” she said; and it afforded Adela exquisite 
pleasure to hear her tell how that she had originally heard 
of the ‘ eccentric young Englishman,’ General Pierson’s 
nephew, as a Lustspiel —a comedy; and of his feats on 
horseback, and his duels, and his—“ he was very wicked 
over here, you knowLena laughed. She assumed the 
privileges of her four-and-twenty years and her rank. Her 
marriage was to take place in the Spring. She announced 


THE ESCAPE OP ANGELO. 


279 


it with the simplicity of an independent woman of the 
world, adding, “ That is, if my Wilfrid will oblige me by 
not plunging into further disgrace with the General.” 

“ hTo ; you will not marry a man who is under a cloud,” 
Anna subjoined. 

“ Certainly not a soldier,” said Lena. “ What it was 
exactly that he did at La Scala, I don’t know, and don’t 
care to know, but he was then ignorant that she had touched 
the hand of that Guidascarpi. I decide by this—he was 
valiant; he defied everybody: therefore, I forgive him. 
He is not in disgrace with me. I will reinstate him.” 

“ You have your own way of being romantic,” said Anna. 
“ A soldier who forgets his duty is in my opinion only a 
brave fool.” 

“ It seems to me that a great many gallant officers are 
fond of fine voices,” Lena retorted. 

“ ISTo doubt it is a fashion among them,” said Anna. 

Adela recoiled with astonishment when she began to see 
the light in which the sisters regarded Vittoria; and she 
was loyal enough to hint and protest on her friend’s behalf. 
The sisters called her a very good soul. “ It may not be 
in England as over here,” said Anna. “ We have to submit 
to these little social scourges.” 

Lena whispered to Adela, “ An angry woman will think 
the worst. I have no doubt of my Wilfrid. If I had!” 
Her eyes flashed. Fife was not wanting in her. 

The difficulties which tasked the amiable duchess to 
preserve an outward show of peace among the antago¬ 
nistic elements she gathered together were increased by 
the arrival at the castle of Count Lenkenstein, Bianca’s 
husband, and head of the family, from Bologna. He was 
a tall and courtly man, who had one face for his friends 
and another for the reverse party; which is to say, that 
his manners could be bad. Count Lenkenstein was ac¬ 
companied by Count Serabiglione, who brought Laura’s 
children with their Homan nurse, Assunta. Laura kissed 
her'little ones, and sent them out of her sight. Vittoria 
found her home in their play and prattle. She needed 
a refuge, for Count Lenkenstein was singularly brutal in 
his bearing toward her. He let her know that he had 
come to Meran to superintend the hunt for the assassin, 
Angelo Guidascarpi. He attempted to exact her promise in 


280 


VITTORIA. 


precise speecTi tliat sTie would be on tbe spot to testify 
ag'ainst Angelo when that foul villain should be caught. 
He objected openly to Laura’s children going about with 
her. Bitter talk on every starting subject was exchanged 
across the duchess’s table. She herself was in disgrace on 
Laura’s account, and had to practise an overflowing sweet¬ 
ness, with no one to second her efforts. The two noblemen 
spoke in accord on the bubble revolution. The strong hand 
—ay, the strong hand ! The strong hand disposes of vermin. 
Laura listened to them, pallid with silent torture. “ Since 
the rascals have taken to assassination, we know that we 
have them at the dregs,” said Count Lenkensfcein. “A cord 
round the throats of a few scores of them, and the country 
will learn the virtue of docility.” 

Laura whispered to her sister; “ Have you espoused a 
hangman ?” 

Such dropping of deadly shells in a quiet society went 
near to scattei-ing it violently; but the union was neces¬ 
sitous. Count Lenkenstein desired to confront Yittoria with 
Angelo ; Laura would not quit her side, and Amalia would 
not expel her friend. Count Lenkenstein complained roughly 
of Laura’s conduct; nor did Laura escape her father’s re¬ 
proof. “ Sir, you are privileged to say what you will to 
me,” she responded, with the humility which exasperated 
him. 

“ Yes, you bend, you bend, that you may be stiff-necked 
when it suits you,” he snapped her short. 

“ Surely that is the text of the sermon you preach to our 
Italy!” 

“ A little more, as you are running on now, madame, and 
‘ our Italy ’ will be froth on the lips. You see, she is 
ruined.” 

“ Chi le fa, le sa,” hummed Laura; “ but I would avoid 
quoting you as that authority.” 

“ After your last miserable fiasco, my dear !” 

“It was another of our school exercises. We had not 
been good boys and girls. We had learnt our lesson imper¬ 
fectly. We have received our punishment, and we mean to 
do better next time.” 

“ Behave seasonably, fittingly; be less of a wasp ; school 
your tongue.” 

“ Bianca is a pattern to me, I am aware,” said Laura. 


THE ESCAPE OE ANGELO- 


281 


She is a good wife.*’ 

I am a poor widow.” 

“ She is a good daughter.’*’ 

“ I am a wicked rebel.” 

“ And you are scheming at something now** said the little 
nobleman, sagacious so far; but he was too eager to read the 
Terification of the tentative remark in her face, and she per¬ 
ceived that it was a guess founded on her show of spirit. 

“ Scheming to contain my temper, which is much tried,” 
she said. “ But I suppose it supports me. I can always 
keep up against hostility.” 

“ You provoke it; you provoke it.” 

“ !My instinct, then, divines my medicine.” 

“Exactly, my dear; your personal instinct. That insti¬ 
gates you all. And none are so easily conciliated as these 
Austrians. Conciliate them, and you have them.” Count 
Serabiglione diverged into a repetition of his theory of the ' 
policy and mission of superior intelligences, as regarded his 
system for dealing with the Austrians. 

^urse Assunta’s jealousy was worked upon to separate the 
children from Vittoria. They ran down with her no more to 
meet the vast bowls of grapes in the morning and feather 
their hats with vine leaves. Deprived of her darlings, the 
lonelessness of her days made her look to Wilfrid for com¬ 
miseration. Father Bernardus was too continually exhor¬ 
tative, and fenced too much to “ hit the eyeball of her 
conscience,” as he phrased it, to aiford her repose. Wilfrid 
could tell himself that he had already done much for her; 
for if what he had done were known, his career, social and 
military, was ended. This idea being accompanied by a 
sense of security delighted him; he was accustomed to 
inquire of Angelo’s condition, and praise the British doctor 
who was attending him gratuitously. “ I wish I could get 
him out of the way,” he said, and frowned as in a mental 
struggle. Yittoria heard him repeat his “ I wish !” It 
heightened greatly her conception of the sacrifice he would 
be making on her behalf and charity’s. She spoke with a 
reverential tenderness, such as it was hard to suppose a 
woman capable of addressing to other than the man who 
moved her soul. The words she uttered were pure thanks^ 
it was the tone which sent them winged and shaking seed. 
She had spoken partly to prompt his activity, but her self- 


282 


VITTOEIA. 


respect liad been snstamed by bis avoidance of the dreaded 
old themes, and that grateful feeling made her voice musi¬ 
cally rich. 

“ I dare not go to him, but the doctor tells me the fever 
has left him, Wilfrid; his wounds are healing; but he is 
bandaged from head to foot. The sword pierced his side 
twice, and his arms and hands are cut horribly. He cannot 
yet walk. If he is discovered he is lost. Count Lenken- 
stein has declared that he will stay at the castle till he has 
him his prisoner. The soldiers are all round us. They 
know that Angelo is in the ring. They have traced him all 
over from the Valtellina to this Ultenthal, aittl only cannot 
gness where he is in the lion’s jaw. I rise in the morning, 
thinking ‘ Is this to be the black day ?’ He is sure to be 
caught.” 

“If I could hit on a plan,” said Wilfrid, figuring as 
though he had a diorama of impossible schemes revolving 
before his eyes. 

“ I could believe in the actual whispering of an angel if 
you did. It was to guard me that Angelo put himself in 
peril.” 

“ Then,” said Wilfrid, “ I am his debtor. I owe him as 
much as my life is worth.” 

“ Think, think,” she urged; and promised affection, devo¬ 
tion, veneration, vague things, that were too like his own 
sentiments to prompt him pointedly. Yet he so pledged 
himself to her by word, and prepared his own mind to con¬ 
ceive the act of service, that (as he did not reflect) circum¬ 
stance might at any moment plunge him into a gulf. Con¬ 
duct of this sort is a challenge sure to be answered. 

One morning Vittoria was gladdened by a letter from 
Rocco Ricci, who had fled to Turin. He told her that the 
king had promised to give her a warm welcome in his 
capital, where her name was famous. She consulted with 
Laura, and they resolved to go as soon as Angelo could 
stand on his feet. Turin was cold Italy, but it was Italy; 
and from Turin the Italian army was to flow, like the 
Mincio from the Garda lake. “ And there, too, is a stage,” 
Vittoria thought, in a suddenly revived thirst for the stage 
and a field for work. She determined to run down to Meran/ 
and see Angelo. Laura walked a little way with her, till 
Wilfrid, alert for these occasions, joined them. On the 


THE ESCAPE OP ANGELO. 


283 


commencemeTit of tlie zig-za^ below, there were soldiers, the 
sight of whom was not confusing. Military messengers 
frequently came up to the castle where Count Lenkenstein, 
assisted by Count Serabiglione, examined their depositions, 
the Italian in the manner of a winding lawyer, the German 
of a gruff judge. Half way down the zig-zag Vittoria cast 
a preconcerted signal back to Laura. The soldiers had a 
pair of prisoners between their ranks ; Vittoria recognized 
the men who had carried Captain Weisspriess from the 
ground where the duel was fought. A quick divination told 
her that they held Angelo’s life on their tongues. They 
must have found him in the mountain-pass while hurrying 
to their homes, and it was they who had led him to Meran. 
On the Passeyr bridge, she turned and said to Wilfrid, 
“ Help me now. Send instantly the doctor in a carriage to 
the place where he is lying.” 

Wilfrid was intent on her flushed beauty and the half- 
compressed quiver of her lip. 

She quitted him and hurried to Angelo. Her joy broke 
out in a cry of thankfulness at sight of Angelo ; he had 
risen from his bed ; he could stand, and he smiled. 

“ That Jacopo is just now the nearest link to me,” he 
said, when she related her having seen the two men guarded 
by soldiers ; he felt helpless, and spoke in resignation. She 
followed his eye about the room till it rested on the stilet. 
This she handed to him. “ If they think of having me 
alive !” he said softly. The Italian and his wife who had 
given him shelter and nursed him came in, and approved 
his going, though they did not complain of what they might 
chance to have incurred. He offered them his purse, and 
they took it. Minutes of grievous expectation went by ; 
Vittoria could endure them no longer; she ran out to the 
hotel, near which, in the shade of a poplar, Wilfrid was 
smoking quietly. He informed her that his sister and the 
doctor had driven out to meet Captain Gambier ; his brother- 
in-law was alone upstairs. Her look of amazement touched 
him more shrewdly than scorn, and he said, “What on 
earth can I do ?” 

“ Order out a carriage. Send your brother-in-law in it. 
If you tell him ‘ for your health,’ he will go.” 

“ On my honour, I don’t know where those three words 
would not send him,” said Wilfrid; but he did not move. 


284 


TITTORIA. 


and was for protesting that he really could not guess what 
was the matter, and the ground for all this urgency. 

Vittoria compelled her angry lips to speak out her sus¬ 
picions explicitly, whereupon he glanced at the sun-glare in 
a meditation, occasionally blinking his eyes. She thought, 
“ Oh, heaven ! can he be waiting for me to coax him ?” It 
was the truth, though it would have been strange to him to 
have heard it. She grew sure that it was the truth; never 
had she despised living creature so utterly as when she 
murmured, “ My best friend! my brother 1 my noble 
Wilfrid! my old beloved 1 help me now, without loss of a 
minute.” 

It caused his breath to come and go unevenly. 

“ Repeat that—once, only once,” he said. 

She looked at him with the sorrowful earnestness which, 
as its meaning was shut from him, was so sweet. 

“You will repeat it by-and-by another time? Trust 
me to do my utmost. Old beloved! What is the meaning 
of ‘ old beloved ’ ? One word in explanation. If it means 
anything, I would die for you 1 Emilia, do you hear ?—die 
for you 1 To me you are nothing old or bygone, whatever I 
may be to you. To me—yes, I will order the carriage—you 
are the Emilia—listen 1 listen! Ah ! you have shut your 
ears against me. I am bound in all seeming, but I—you drive 
me mad; you know your power. Speak one word, that I 
may feel—that I may be convinced ... or not a single 
word ; I will obey you without. I have said that you com¬ 
mand my life.” 

In a block of carriages on the bridge, Vittoria perceived a 
lifted hand. It was Laura’s ; Beppo was in attendance on 
her. Laura drove up and said : “ You guessed right; where 
is he ?” The communications between them were more 
indicated than spoken. Beppo had heard Jacopo confess to 
his having conducted a wounded Italian gentleman into 
Meran. “ That means that the houses will be searched 
within an hour,” said Laura; “ my brother-in-law Bear is 
radiant.” She mimicked the Lenkenstein physiognomy 
spontaneously in the run of her speech. “ If Angelo can 
help himself ever so little, he has a fair start.” A look was 
cast on Wilfrid; Vittoria nodded—Wilfrid was entrapped. 

“ Englishmen we can trust,” said Laura, and requested 
him to step into her carriage. He glanced round the open 


THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO. 


285 


space. Beppo did the same, and beheld the chasseur Jacob 
Baumwalder Feckelwitz crossing the bridge on foot, but he 
said nothing. Wilfrid was on the step of the carriage, for 
what positive object neither he nor the others knew, when, 
his sister and the doctor joined them. Captain Gambier w^as 
still missing. 

“ He would have done anything for us,” Vittoria said in 
Wilfrid’s hearing. 

“ Tell us what plan you have,” the latter replied fretfully. 

She whispered : Persuade Adela to make her husband 
drive out. The doctor will go too, and Beppo. They shall 
take Angelo. Our carriage will follow empty, and bring 
Mr. Sedley back.” 

Wilfrid cast his eyes up in the air, at the monstrous 
impudence of the project. “ A storm is coming on,” he 
suggested, to divert her reading of his grimace ; but she 
was speaking to the doctor, who readily answered her 
aloud : “ If you are certain of what you say.” The remark 
incited Wilfrid to be no subordinate in devotion; handing 
Adela from the carriage, while the doctor ran up to Mr. 
Sedley, he drew her away. Laura and Vittoria watched the 
motion of their eyes and lips. 

“Will he tell her the purpose ?” said Laura. 

Vittoria smiled nervously : “ He is fibbing.” 

Marking the energy expended by AVilfrid in this art, the 
wiser w^oman said : “ Be on your guard the next two minutes 
he gets you alone.” 

“ You see his devotion.” 

“ Does he see his compensation ? But he must help us at 
any hazard.” 

Adela broke away from her brother twice, and each time 
he fixed her to the spot more imperiously. At last she ran 
into the hotel; she was crying. “ A bad economy of tears,” 
said Laura, commenting on the dumb scene, to soothe her 
savage impatience. “ In another twenty minutes we shall 
have the city gates locked.” 

They heard a window thrown up ; Mr. Sedley’s head 
came out, and peered at the sky. AVilfrid said to Vittoria: 
“ I can do nothing beyond what I have done, I fear.” 

She thought it was a petition for thanks, but Laura knew 
better; she said : “ I see Count Lenkenstein on his way to 
the barracks.” 


28(5 


VITTORIA. 


Wilfrid bowed : “ I may be able to serve you in that 
quarter.” ^ ^ 

He retired: whereupon Laura inquired how her friena 
could reasonably suppose that a man would ever endure 
being thanked in public. 

“ I shall never understand and never care to understand 
them,” said Vittoria. 

“ It is a knowledge that is forced on us, my dear. May 
heaven make the minds of our enemies stupid for the next 
five hours!—Apropos of what I was saying, women and men 
are in two hostile camps. We have a sort of general armis¬ 
tice and everlasting strife of individuals—Ah !” she clapped 
hands on her knees, “ here comes your doctor; I could fancy 
I see a pointed light on his head. Men of science, my 
Sandra, are always the humauest.” 

The chill air of wind preceding thunder was driving round 
the head of the vale, and Mr. Sedley, wrapped in furs, and 
feebly remonstrating with his medical adviser, stepped into 
his carriage. The doctor followed him, giving a grave 
recognition of Yittoria’s gaze. Both gentlemen raised their 
hats to the ladies, who alighted as soon as they had gone in 
the direction of the Vintschgau road. 

“ One has only to furnish you with money, my Beppo,** 
said Vittoria, complimenting his quick apprehensiveness. 
“ Buy bread and cakes at one of the shops, and buy wine. 
You will find me where you can, when you have seen him safe. 
I have no idea of where my home wdll be. Perhaps England.’* 

“ Italy, Italy ! faint heart,” said Laura. 

Furnished with money, Beppo rolled away gaily. 

The doubt was in Laura whether an Englishman’s wits 
were to be relied on in such an emergency; but she admitted 
that the doctor had looked full enough of serious meaning, 
and that the Englishman named Merthyr Powys was keen 
and ready. They sat a long half-hour, that thumped itself 
out like an alarm-bell, under the poplars, by the clamouring 
Passeyr, watching the roll and spring of the waters, and the 
radiant foam, while band-music played to a great company 
of visitors, and sounds of thunder drew near. Over the 
mountains above the Adige, the leaden fingers of an advance 
of the thunder-cloud pushed slowly, and on a sudden a 
mighty gale sat heaped black on the mountain-top and blew, 
Down went the heads of the poplars, the river staggered iu 


THE ESCAPE OE ANGELO. 




its leap, tlie vale was shuddering grey. It was like the 
transformation in a fairy tale ; Beauty had taken her old 
cloak about her, and bent to calamity. The poplars streamed 
their length sideways, and in the pauses of the strenuous 
wind nodded and dashed wildly and white over the dead 
black water, that waxed in foam and hissed, showing its 
teeth like a beast enraged. Laura and Yittoria joined hands 
and struggled for shelter. The tent of a travelling circus 
from the South, newly-pitched on a grass-plot near the river, 
was caught up and whirled in the air and flung in the face 
of a marching guard of soldiery, whom it swathed and bore 
sheer to earth, while on them and around them a line of 
poplars fell flat, the wind whistling over them. Laura 
directed Vittoria’s eyes to the sight. “ See,” she said, and 
her face was set hard with cold and excitement, so that she 
looked a witch in the uproar; “ would you not say the devil 
is loose now Angelo is abroad ?” Thunder and lightning 
possessed the vale, and then a vertical rain. At the first 
gleam of sunlight, Laura and Yittoria walked up to the 
Laubengasse—the street of the arcades, where they made 
purchases of numerous needless articles, not daring to enter 
the Italian’s shop. A woman at a fruit-stall opposite to it 
told them that no carriage could have driven up there. 
During their great perplexity, mud and rain-stained soldiers, 
the same whom they had seen borne to earth by the flying 
curtain, marched before the shop ; the shop and the house 
were searched; the Italian and his old limping wife were 
carried away. 

“ Tell me now, that storm was not Angelo’s friend!” Laura 
muttered, 

“ Can he have escaped ?” said Yittoria. 

“ He is ‘ on horseback.’ ” Laura quoted the Italian pro¬ 
verb to signify that he had flown; how, she could not say, 
and none could inform her. The joy of their hearts rose in 
one fountain. 

“ I shall feel better blood in my body from this moment,” 
Laura said; and Yittoria, “ Oh 1 we can be strong, if wo 
only resolve.” 

“ You want to sing ?’* 

“ I do.” 

“ I shall find pleasure in your voice now.” 

“ The wicked voice!” 


288 


VITTORIA. 


“ Yes, tlie very wicked voice ! But I shall be glad to bear 
it. You can sing to-night, and drown those Lenkensteins.” 

“ If my Carlo could hear me !” 

“ Ah !” sighed the signora, musing. “ He is in prison 
now. I remember him, the dearest little lad, fencing with 
my husband for exercise after they had been writing all day. 
When Giacomo was imprisoned. Carlo sat outside the prison 
walls till it was time for him to enter; his chin and upper 
lip were smooth as a girl’s. Giacomo said to him, ‘ May you 
always have the power of going out, or not have a wife wait¬ 
ing for you.’ Here they come.” (She spoke of tears.) “ It’s 
because I am joyful. The channel for them has grown so 
dry that they prick and sting. Oh, Sandra ! it would be 
pleasant to me if we might both be buried for seven days, 
and have one long howl of weakness together. A little bite 
of satisfaction makes me so tired. I believe there’s some¬ 
thing very bad for us in our always being at war, and never, 
never gaining ground. Just one spark of triumph intoxi¬ 
cates us. Look at all those people pouring out again. They 
are the children of fair weather. I hope the state of their 
health does not trouble them too much. Vienna sends con¬ 
sumptive patients here. If you regard them attentively, 
you will observe that they have an anxious ear. Their con¬ 
stitutions arc not sound ; they fear they may die.” 

Laura’s irony was unforced ; it was no more than a subtle 
discord naturally struck from the scene by a soul in contrast 
with it. 

They beheld the riding forth of troopers and a knot of 
officers hotly conversing together. At another point the 
duchess and the Lenkenstein ladies. Count Lenkenstein, Count 
Serabiglione, and Wilfrid paced up and down, waiting for 
music. Laura left the public places and crossed an upper 
bridge over the Passeyr, near the castle, by which route she 
skirted vines and dropped over sloping meadows to some 
shaded boulders where the Passeyr found a sandy bay, and 
leaped in transparent green, and whitened and swung twist¬ 
ing in a long smooth body down a narrow chasm, and noised 
below. The thundering torrent stilled their sensations: and 
the water, making battle against great blocks of porphyry 
and granite, caught their thoughts. So strong was the im¬ 
pression of it on Vittoria’s mind, that for hpurs after, every 
image she conceived seemed proper to the inrush and outpour; 


THE ESCAPE OP ANGELO. 


ZO\J 


the elbowing, the tossing, the foaming, the burst on stones, 
and silvery bubbles under and silvery canopy above, the chat¬ 
tering and huzzaing; all working on to the one-toned fall 
beneath the rainbow on the castle-rock. 

Next day, the chasseur Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz 
deposed in full company at Sonnenberg, that, obeying Count 
Serabiglione’s instructions, he had gone down to the city, and 
had there seen Lieutenant Pierson with the ladies in front of 
the hotel; he had followed the English carriage, which took 
up a man who was standing ready on crutches at the corner 
of the Laubengasse, and drove rapidly out of the North¬ 
western gate, leading to Schlanders and Mals and the Enga- 
dine. He had witnessed the transfer of the crippled man 
from one carriage to another, and had raised shouts and 
given hue and cry, but the intervention of the storm had 
stopped his pursuit. 

He was proceeding to say what his suppositions were. 
Count Lenkenstein lifted his finger for Wilfrid to follow him 
out of the room. Count Serabiglione went at their heels. 
Then Count Lenkenstein sent for his wife, whom Anna and 
Lena accompanied. 

“ How many persons are you going to ruin in the course 
of your crusade, my dear ?” the duchess said to Laura. 

“ Dearest, I am penitent when I succeed,” said Laura. 

“ If that young man has been assisting you, he is irretriev¬ 
ably ruined.” 

“ I am truly sorry for him.” 

“ As for me, the lectures I shall get in Vienna are terrible 
to think of. This is the consequence of being the friend of 
both parties, and a peace-maker.” 

Count Serabiglione returned alone from the scene at the 
examination, rubbing his hands and nodding affably to his 
daughter. He maliciously declined to gratify the monster 
of feminine curiosity in the lump, and doled out the scene 
piecemeal. He might state, he observed, that it was he who 
had lured Beppo to listen at the door during the examination 
of the prisoners ; and who had then planted a spy on him— 
following the dictation of precepts exceedingly old. “We 
are generally beaten, duchess ; I admit it; and yet we gene¬ 
rally contrive to show the brains. As I say, wed brains to 
brute force !—but my Laura prefers to bring about a contest 
instead of an union, so that somebody is certain to be struck, 

u 


Z\JU 


VITTORIA. 


and ”—the count spread out his arms and bowed his head— 
“ deserves the blow.” He informed them that Count Len- 
kenstein had ordered Lieutenant Pierson down to Meran, and 
that the lieutenant might expect to be cashiered within five 
days. “ What does it matter ?” he addressed Yittoria. “ It 
is but a shuffling of victims; Lieutenant Pierson in the place 
of Guidascarpi! I do not object.” 

Count Lenkenstein withdrew his wife and sisters from 
Sonnenberg instantly. He sent an angry message of adieu 
to the duchess, informing her that he alone was responsible 
for the behaviour of the ladies of his family. The poor 
duchess wept. “ This means that I shall be summoned to 
Vienna for a scolding, and have to meet my husband,” she 
said to Laura, who permitted herself to be fondled, and barely 
veiled her exultation in her apology for the mischief she had 
done. An hour after the departure of the Lenkensteins, the 
castle was again officially visited by Colonel Zofel. Yittoria 
and Laura received an order to quit the district of Meran 
before sunset. The two firebrands dropped no tears. “ I 
really am sorry for others when I succeed,” said Laura, trying 
to look sad upon her friend. 

“ No; the heart is eaten out of you both by excitement,” 
said the duchess. 

Her tender parting, “ Love me,” in the ear of Yittoria, 
melted one heart of the two. 

Count Serabiglione continued to be buoyed up by his own 
and his daughter’s recent display of a superior intellectual 
dexterity until the carriage was at the door and Laura pre¬ 
sented her cheek to him. He said, “You will know me a 
wise man when I am off the table.” His gesticulations 
expressed “ Ruin, headlong ruin !” He asked her how she 
could expect him to be for ever repairing her follies. He 
w'as going to Vienna; how could he dare to mention her 
name there ? Not even in a trifle would she consent to be 
subordinate to authority. Laura checked her replies—the 
surrendering of a noble Italian life to the Austrians was 
such a trifle ! She begged only that a poor wanderer might 
depart with a father’s blessing. The count refused to give 
it; he \vaved her off in a fury of reproof ; and so got smoothly 
over the fatal moment when money, or the promise of money, 
is commonly extracted from parental sources, as Laura ex¬ 
plained his odd behaviour to her companion. The carriage- 


THE ESCAPE OP ANGELO. 


291 


door being closed, be regained his courtly composure; his 
fury was displaced by a chiding finger, which he presently 
kissed. Father Bernardus was on the steps beside the 
duchess, and his blessing had not been withheld from Vittoria, 
though he half confessed to her that she was a mystery in 
his mind, and would always be one. 

“ He can understand robust hostility,” Laura said, when 
Yittoria recalled the look of his benevolent forehead and 
drooping eyelids ; “ but robust ductility does astonish him. 
He has not meddled with me; yet I am the one of the tw^o 
who would be fair prey for an enterprising spiritual father, 
as the*destined man of heaven will find out some day.” 

She bent and smote her lap. “ How little they know us, 
my darling! They take fever for strength, and calmness 
for submission. Here is the world before us, and I feel that 
such a man, were he to pounce on me now, might snap me 
up and lock me in a praying-box with small difiiculty. And 
I am the inveterate rebel! What is it nourishes you and 
keeps you always aiming straight when you are alone ? Once 
in lArin, I shall feel that I am myself. Out of Italy I have 
a terrible craving for peace. It seems here as if I must lean 
down to him, my beloved, who has left me.” 

Yittoria was in alarm lest Wilfrid should accost her while 
she drove from gate to gate of the city. They passed under 
the archway of the gate leading up to* Schloss Tyrol, and 
along the road bordered by vines. An old peasant woman 
stopped them with the signal of a letter in her hand. “ Here 
it is,” said Laura, and Yittoria could not help smiling at her 
shrewd anticipation of it. 

“ May I follow 

Nothing more than that was written. 

But the bearer of the missive had been provided with a 
lead pencil to obtain the immediate reply. 

“An admirable piece of foresight!” Laura’s honest ex¬ 
clamation burst forth. 

Yittoria had to look in Laura’s face before she could gather 
her will to do the cruel thing which was least cruel. »Sha 
wrote firmly : 

Never follow me.” 


292 


VITTOEIA. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR. 

THE TOBACCO-RIOTS.-EINALDO GUIDASCARPI. 

Anna von Lenkenstein was one wlio could wait for ven¬ 
geance. Lena punished on the spot, and punished herself 
most. She broke off her engagement with Wilfrid, while 
at the same time she caused a secret message to be conveyed 
to him, telling him that the prolongation of his residence in 
Meran would restore him to his position in the army. 

Wilfrid remained at Meran till the last days of December. 

It was winter in Milan, turning to the new year—the year 
of flames for continental Europe. A young man with a 
military stride, but out of uniform, had stepped from a 
travelling carriage and entered a cigar-shop. Upon calling 
for cigars, he was surprised to observe the woman who was 
serving there keep her arms under her apron. She cast a 
look into the street, where a crowd of boys and one or two lean 
men had gathered about the door. After some delay, she 
entreated her customer to let her pluck his cloak half-way 
over the counter ; at the same time she thrust a cigar-box 
under that concealment, together with a printed song in the 
Milanese dialect. He lifted the paper to read it, and found 
it tough as Russ. She translated some of the more salient 
couplets. Tobacco had become a dead business, she said, 
now that the popular edict had gone forth against ‘ smoking 
gold into the pockets of the Tedeschi.’ Xone smoked except 
officers and Englishmen. 

“ I am an Englishman,” he said. 

“ And not an officer ?” she asked ; but he gave no answer. 
“ Englishmen are rare in winter, and don’t like being 
mobbed,” said the woman. 

Xodding to her urgent petition, he deferred the lighting 
of his cigar. The vetturino requested him to jump up 
quickly, and a howl of “ Xo smoking in Milan—fuori !—• 
down with tobacco-smokers !” beset the carriage. He tossed 
half-a-dozen cigars on the pavement derisively. They were 
scrambled for as when a pack of wolves are diverted by a 
garment dropped from the flying sledge, but the unluckier 
hands came aflei his heels in fuller howl. He noticed the 


THE TOBACCO-EIOTS. 


293 


singular appearance of the streets. Bands of the scum of 
the population hung at various points : from time to time a 
shout was raised at a dis^.ance, “ Abasso il zigarro !” and 
“ A^vaj with the cigar!” went an organized tile-firing of 
cries along the open place. Several gentlemen were mobbed, 
and compelled to fling the cigars from their teeth. He saw 
the polizia in twos and threes taking counsel and shrugging, 
evidently too anxious to avoid a collision. Austrian soldiers 
and subalterns alone smoked freely ; they puffed the harder 
when the yells and hootings and whistlings thickened at 
their heels. Sometimes they walked on at their own pace ; 
or, when the noise swelled to a crisis, turned and stood fast, 
making an exhibition of curling smoke, as a mute form of 
contempt. Then commenced bustlings and a tremendous 
uproar; sabres were drawn, the whitecoats planted them¬ 
selves back to back. Milan was clearly in a condition of 
raging disease. The soldiery not only accepted the chal¬ 
lenge of the mob, but assumed the offensive. Here and 
there they were seen crossing the street to puff obnoxiously 
in the faces of people. Numerous subalterns were abroad, 
lively for strife, and bright with the signal of their readi¬ 
ness. An icy wind blew down from the Alps, whitening the 
housetops and the ways, but every street, corso, and piazza 
was dense with loungers, as on a summer evening; the 
clamour of a skirmish anywhere attracted streams of dis¬ 
ciplined rioters on all sides ; it was the holiday of rascals. 

Our traveller had ordered his vetturino to drive slowly to 
his hotel, that he might take the features of this novel 
scene. He soon showed his view of the case by putting an 
unlighted cigar in his mouth. The vetturino noted that his 
conveyance acted as a kindling-match to awaken cries in 
quiet quarters, looked round, and grinned savagely at the 
sight of the cigar. 

“ Drop it, or I drop you,” he said ; and hearing the com¬ 
mand to drive on, pulled up short. 

They were in a narrow way leading to the Piazza de’ 
Mercanti. While the altercation was going on between 
them, a great push of men emerged from one of the close 
courts some dozen paces ahead of the horse, bearing forth a 
single young officer in their midst. 

“ Signore, would you like to be the froth of a boiling of 
that sort ?” The vetturino seized the image at once to strike 


294 


VITTORIA. 


home his instance of the danger of outraging the will of the 
people. 

Our traveller immediately unlocked a case that lay on 
the seat in front of him, and drew out a steel scabbard, from 
which he plucked the sword, and straightway leaped to the 
ground. The officer’s cigar had been dashed from his mouth : 
he stood at bay, sword in hand, meeting a rush with a 
desperate stroke. The assistance of a second sword got 
him clear of the fray. Both hastened forward as the crush 
melted with the hiss of a withdrawing wave. They inter¬ 
changed exclamations :— 

“ Is it you, Jenna !” 

“ In the devil’s name, Pierson, have you come to keep your 
appointment in mid-winter?” 

“ Come on: I’ll stick beside you.” 

“ On, then!” 

They glanced behind them, heeding little the tail of 
ruffians whom they had silenced. 

“We shall have plenty of fighting soon, so we’ll smoke a 
cordial cigar together,” said Lieutenant Jenna, and at once 
struck a light and blazed defiance to Milan afresh—an 
example that was necessarily followed by his comrade. 
“ What has happened to you, Pierson ? Of course, I knew 
you were ready for our bit of play—though you’ll hear what 
I said of you. How the deuce could you think of running 
off with that opera girl, and getting a fellow in the moun¬ 
tains to stab our merry old Weisspriess, just because you 
fancied he was going to slip a word or so over the back of 
his hand in Countess Lena’s ear ? Ho wonder she’s shy of 
you now.” 

“ So, that’s the tale afloat,” said Wilfrid. “ Come to my 
hotel and dine with me. I suppose that cur has driven my 
luggage there.” 

Jenna informed him that officers had to muster in barracks 
every evening. 

“ Come and see your old comrades; they’ll like you better 
in bad luck—there’s the comfort of it: hang the human 
nature ! She’s a good old brute, if you don’t drive her hard. 
Our regiment left Verona in Hovember. There we had 
tolerable cookery ; come and take the best we can give you.” 

But this invitation Wilfrid had to decline. 

“ Why ?” said Jenna. 


THE TOBACCO-EIOTS. 


295 


He replied: “ I’ve stuck at Meran three montlis. I did 
it in obedience to what I understood from Colonel Zofel to 
be the General’s orders. When I was as perfectly dry as a 
baked Egyptian, I determined to believe that I was not only 
in disgrace, but dismissed the service. I posted to Botzen 
and Riva, on to Milan; and here I am. The least I can do 
is to show myself here.” 

“ Very well, then, come and show yourself at our table,” 
said Jenna. “ Listen : we’ll make a furious row after supper, 
and get hauled in by the collar before the General. You 
can swear you have never been absent from duty : swear 
the General never gave you forcible furlough. I’ll swear 
it; all our fellows will swear it. The General will say, 
‘ Oh ! a very big lie’s equal to a truth ; big brother to a fact,’ 
or something ; as he always does, you know. Face it out. 
We can’t spare a good stout sword in these times. On with 
me, my Pierson.” 

“ I would,” said Wilfrid, doubtfully. 

A douse of water from a window extinguished their cigars. 

Lieutenant Jenna wiped his face deliberately, and lighting 
another cigar, remarked—“ This is the fifth poor devil who 
has come to an untimely end within an hour. It is brisk 
work. Now, I’ll swear I’ll smoke this one out.” 

The cigar was scattered in sparks from his lips by a hat 
skilfully flung. He picked it up miry and cleaned it, 
observing that his honour was pledged to this fellow. The 
hat he trampled into a muddy lump. Wilfrid found it 
impossible to ape his coolness. He swung about for an 
adversary. Jenna pulled him on. 

“ A salute from a window,” he said. “We can’t storm 
the houses. The time’ll come for it—and then, you cats !” 

Wilfrid inquired how long this state of things had been 
going on. Jenna replied that they appeared to be in the 
middle of it;—nearly a week. Another week, and their day 
would arrive ; and then ! 

“ Have you heard anything of a Count Ammiani hero r” 
said Wilfrid. 

“ Oh ! he’s one of the lot, I believe. We have him fast, 
as we’ll have the bundle of them. Keep eye on those dogs 
behind us, and manoeuvre your cigar. The plan is, to give 
half-a-dozen bright puffs, and then keep it in your fist; and 
when you see an Italian head, volcano him like fury. Yes, 


296 


VITTOEIA. 


I’ve heard of that Amniiani. The scoundrels made an 
attempt to get him out of prison—1 fancy he’s in the city 
prison—last Friday night. I don’t know exactly wdiere he 
is ; but it’s pretty fair reckoning to say that he’ll enjoy a 
large slice of the next year in the charming solitude of 
Spielberg, if Milan is restless. Is he a friend of yours ?” 

“ Hot by any means,” said Wilfrid. 

“ Mio prigione! ” Jenna mouthed with ineffable con¬ 
temptuousness ; “ he’ll have time to write his memoirs, as 
one of the dogs did. I remember my mother crying over 
the book. I read it ? Hot I! I never read books. My 
father said—the stout old colonel—‘ Prison seems to make 
these Italians take an interest in themselves.’ ‘ Oh !’ says 
my mother, ‘ why can’t they be at peace with us ?’ ‘ That’s 

exactly the question,’ says my father, ‘ we’re always putting 
to them.’ And so I say. Why can’t they let us smoke our 
cigars in peace ?” 

Jenna finished by assaulting a herd of faces with smoke. 

“ Pig of a German! ” was shouted ; and “ Porco, porco,” 
was sung in a scale of voices. Jenna received a blinding 
slap across the eyes. He staggered back ; Wilfrid slashed 
his sword in defence of him. He struck a man down. 
“ Blood! blood!” cried the gathering mob, and gave space, 
but hedged the couple thickly. Windows were thrown 
up ; forth came a rain of household projectiles The cry of 
“ Blood ! blood ! ” was repeated by numbers pouring on them 
from the issues to right and left. It is a terrible cry in a 
city. In a city of the South it rouses the wild beast in men 
to madness. Jenna smoked triumphantly and blew great 
clouds, with an eye aloft for the stools, basins, chairs, and 
water descending. They were in the middle of one of the 
close streets of old Milan. The man felled by Wilfrid was 
raised on strong arms, that his bleeding head might be seen 
of all, and a dreadful hum went round. A fire of missiles, 
stones, balls of wax, lumps of dirt, sticks of broken chairs, 
began to play. Wilfrid had a sudden gleam of the face of 
his Verona assailant. He and Jenna called “ Follow me,” in 
one breath, and drove forward with sword-points, which 
they dashed at the foremost; by dint of swift semi-circlings 
of the edges they got through, but a mighty voice of com¬ 
mand thundered ; the rearward portion of the mob swung 
rapidly to the front, presenting a scattered second barrier j 


EINALDO GUIDASCARPI. 


297 


Jenna tripped on a fallen body, lost liis cigar, and swore that 
be must find it. A dagger struck his sword-arm. He stag¬ 
gered and flourished his blade in the air, calling “ On ! ” 
without stirring. “ This infernal cigar ! ” he said ; and to 
the mob, “ What mongrel of you took my cigar ? ” Stones 
thumped on his breast; the barrier-line ahead grew denser. 

“ I’ll go at them first; you’re bleeding,” said Wilfrid. They 
were refreshed by the sound of German cheering, as in 
approach. Jenna uplifted a crow of the regimental hurrah 
of the charge ; it was answered ; on they went and got 
through the second fence, saw their comrades, and were 
running to meet them, when a weighted ball hit Wilfrid 
on the back of the head. He fell, as he believed, on a 
cushion of down, and saw thousands of saints dancing with 
lamps along cathedral aisles. 

The next time he opened his eyes he fancied he had 
dropped into the vaults of the cathedral. His sensation of^ 
sinking w^as so vivid that he feared lest he should be going 
still further below. There w'as a lamp in the chamber, and 
a young man sat reading by the light of the lamp. Vision 
danced fantastically on Wilfrid’s brain. He saw that he 
rocked as in a ship, yet there was no noise of the sea; 
nothing save the remote thunder haunting empty ears at 
strain for sound. lie looked again ; the young man was 
gone, the lamp was flickering. Then he became conscious of 
a strong ray on his eyelids ; he beheld his enemy gazing 
down on him and swooned. It was with joy that, when his 
wits returned, he found himself looking on the young man 
by the lamp. “ That other face was a dream,” he thought, 
and studied the aspect of the young man with the unwearied 
attentiveness of partial stupor, that can note accurately, but 
cannot deduce from its noting, and is inveterate in patience 
because it is unideaed. Memory wakened first. 

“ Guidascarpi!” he said to himself. 

The name was uttered half aloud. The young man started 
and closed his book. 

“ You know me ? ” he asked. 

“ You are Guidascarpi ? ” 

“ I am.” 

“ Guidascarpi, I think I helped to save your life in 
^leran.” 

The young inan stooped over him. “ You speak of my 


2D8 


VITTORIA. 


brother Angelo. I am Rinaldo. My debt to you is the 
same, if you have served him.” 

“ Is he safe ? ” 

“ He is in Lugano.” 

“ The signorina Vittoria ? ” 

“In Turin.” 

“Where am I?” 

The reply came from another mouth than Rinaldo’s. 

“ You are in the poor lodging of the shoemaker, whose 
shoes, if you had thought fit to wear them, would have con¬ 
ducted you anywhere but to this place.” 

“ Who are you ? ” Wilfrid moaned. 

“ You ask who I am. I am the Eye of Italy. I am the 
Cat who sees in the dark.” Barto Rizzo raised the lamp 
and stood at his feet. “ Look straight. You know me, I think.” 

Wilfrid sighed, “ Yes, I know you ; do your worst.” 

His head throbbed with the hearing of a heavy laugh, as 
if a hammer had knocked it. What ensued he knew not; 
he was left to his rest. He lay there many days and nights, 
that were marked by no change of light; the lamp burned 
unwearyingly. Rinaldo and a woman tended him. The sign 
of his reviving strength was shown by a complaint he 
launched at the earthy smell of the place. 

“ It is like death,” said Rinaldo, coming to his side. “ I 
am used to it, and familiar with death too,” he added in a 
musical undertone. 

“ Are you also a prisoner here ?” Wilfrid questioned him. 

“ I am.” 

' “ The brute does not kill, then ?” 

“Ho; he saves. I owe my life to him. He has rescued 
yours.” 

“ Mine ?” said Wilfrid. 

“ You would have been torn to pieces in the streets but 
for Barto Rizzo.” 

The streets were the world above to Wilfrid ; he was 
eager to hear of the doings in them. Rinaldo told him that 
the tobacco-war raged still ; the soldiery had recently 
received orders to smoke abroad, and street battles were 
hourly occurring. “They call this government I” he inter¬ 
jected. 

He was a soft-voiced youth ; slim and tall and dark, like 
Angelo, but with a more studious forehead. The book he 


RINALDO GUIDASCARPI. 


299 


was constantly reading was a book of chemistry. He enter¬ 
tained Wilfrid with very strange talk. He spoke of the 
stars and of a destiny. He cited certain minor events of his 
Jife to show the ground of his present belief in there being 
a written destiny for each individual man. “ Angelo and I 
know it ’well. It was revealed to us when we were boys. 
It has been certified to us up to this moment. Mark what I 
tell you,” he pursued in a devout sincerity of manner that 
baffled remonstrance, “ my days end with this new year. 
His end with the year following. Our house is dead.” 

Wilfrid pressed his hand. “Have you not been too long 
underground ?” 

“ That is the conviction I am coming to. But when 1 go 
out to breathe the air of heaven, I go to my fate. Should I 
hesitate ? We Italians of this period are children of thunder 
and live the life of a flash. The worms may creep on: -the 
men must die. Out of us springs a better world. Romara, 
Ammiani, Mercadesco, Montesini, Rufo, Cardi, whether they 
see it or not, will sweep forward to it. To some of them, 
one additional day of breath is precious. Not so for Angelo 
and me. We are unbeloved. We have neither mother nor 
sister, nor betrothed. What is an existence that can fly to 
no human arms ? I have been too long underground, 
because, while I continue to hide, I am as a drawn sword 
between two lovers.” 

The previous mention of Ammiani’s name, together with 
the knowledge he had of Ammiani’s relationship to the 
Guidascarpi, pointed an instant identification of these lovers 
to Wilfrid. 

He asked feverishly who they were, and looked his best 
simplicity, as one who was always interested by stories of 
lovers. 

The voice of Barto Rizzo, singing “Vittoria!” stopped 
Rinaldo’s reply: but Wilfrid read it in his smile at that 
word. He was too weak to restrain his anguish, and flung 
on the couch and sobbed. Rinaldo supposed that he was in 
fear of Barto, and encouraged him to meet the man confi¬ 
dently. A lusty “ Viva I’ltalia! Vittoria!” heralded Barto’s 
entrance. “ My boy ! my noblest I Ave have beaten them—• 
the cravens 1 Tell me now—have I served an apprenticeship 
to the devil for nothing ? We have struck the cigars out of 
their mouths and the monopoly-money out of their pockets. 


VITTORIA. 


300 

They have surrendered. The Imperial order prohibits 
soldiers from smoking in the streets of Milan, and so 
throughout Lombardy ! Soon we will have the prisons 
empty, by our own order. Trouble yourself no more about 
Ammiani. He shall come out to the sound of trumpets. I 
hear them ! Hither, my Rosellina, my plump melon; up 
with your red lips, and buss me a Napoleon salute— 
ha! ha!” 

Barto’s wife went into his huge arm, and submissively 
lifted her face. He kissed her like a barbaric king, laughing 
as from wine, 

Wilfrid smothered his head from his incarnate thunder. 
He was unnoticed by Barto. Presently a silence told him 
that he was left to himself. An idea possessed him that the 
triumph of the Italians meant the release of Ammiani, and 
his release the loss of Vittoria for ever. Since her graceless 
return of his devotion to her in Meran, something like a 
passion—arising from the sole spring by which he could be 
excited to conceive a passion—had filled his heart. He was 
one of those who delight to dally with gentleness and faith, 
as with things that are their heritage ; but the mere sus¬ 
picion of coquettry and indifference plunged him into a fury 
of jealous wrathfulness, and tossed so desireable an image of 
beauty before him that his mad thirst to embrace it seemed 
love. By our manner of loving we are knovm. He thought 
it no meanness to escape and cause a warning to be conveyed 
to the Grovernment that there was another attempt brewing 
for the rescue of Count Ammiani. Acting forthwith on the 
hot impulse, he seized the lamp. The door was unlocked. 
Luckier than Luigi had been, he found a ladder outside, and 
a square opening through which he crawled ; continuing to 
ascend along close passages and up narrow flights of stairs, 
that appeared to him to be fashioned to avoid the rooms of 
the house. At last he pushed a door, and found himself in 
an armoury, among stands of muskets, swords, bayonets, 
cartouche-boxes, and, most singular of all, though he ob¬ 
served them last, small brass pieces of cannon, shining with 
polish. Shot was piled in pyramids beneath their mouths. 
He examined the guns admiringljr. There were rows of 
daggers along shelves; some in sheath, others bare; one 
that had been hastily wiped showed a smear of ropy blood. 
He stood debating whether he should seize a sword for his 


EINALDO GUIDASCARPI. 


301 


protection. In the act of trying its temper on tlie floor, tlie 
sword-hilt was knocked from his hand, and he felt a coil of 
arms around him. He was in the imprisoning embrace of 
Barto Bizzo’s wife. His first, and perhaps natural, impres¬ 
sion accused her of a violent display of an eccentric passion 
for his manly charms; and the tighter she locked him, the 
more reasonably was he held to suppose it; but as, while 
stamping on the floor, she ofl^ered nothing to his eyes save 
the yellow poll of her neck, and hung neither panting nor 
speaking, he became undeceived. His struggles were pre¬ 
posterous ; his lively sense of ridicule speedily stopped them. 
He remained passive, from time to time desperately adjuring 
his living prison to let him loose, or to conduct him whither 
he had come; but the inexorable coil kept fast—how long 
there W'as no guessing—till he could have roared out tears 
of rage, and that is extremity for an Englishman. Rinaldo 
arrived in his aid; but the woman still clung to him. He 
was freed only by the voice of Barto Bizzo, who marched 
him back. Binaldo subsequently told him that his discovery 
of the armour}'- necessitated his confinement. 

“Necessitates it!” cried Wilfrid. “Is this your Italian 
gratitude ?” 

The other answered : “ My friend, you risked your fortune 
for my brother; but this is a case that concerns our 
country.” 

He deemed these words to be an unquestionable justifica¬ 
tion, for he said no more. After this they ceased to converse. 
Each lay down on his strip of couch-matting ; rose and ate, 
and passed the dreadful untimed hours ; nor would Wilfrid 
ask wdiether it was day or night. We belong to time so 
utterly, that when we get no note of time, it wears the 
shrouded head of death for us already. Binaldo could quit 
the place as he pleased ; he knew the hours ; and Wilfrid sup¬ 
posed that it must be hatred that kept him from voluntarily- 
divulging that blessed piece of knowledge. He had to 
encourage a retorting spirit of hatred in order to mask his 
intense craving. By an assiduous calculation of seconds 
and minutes, he was enabled to jndge that the lamp burned 
a space of six hours before it required replenishing. Barto 
Bizzo’s wife trimmed it regularly, but the accursed woman 
came at all seasons. She brought their meals irregularlj, 
and she would never open her lips: she was like a guardian 


802 


VITTORIA. 


of the tombs. Wilfrid abandoned bis dream of the variation 
of night and day, and with that the sense of life deadened, 
as the lamp did toward the sixth hour. Thenceforward 
his existence fed on the movements of his companion, the 
workings of whose mind he began to read with a marvellous 
insight. He knew once, long in advance of the act or an 
indication of it, that Rinaldo was bent on prayer. Rinaldo 
had slightly closed his eyelids during the perusal of his 
book ; he had taken a pencil and traced lines on it from 
memory, and dotted points here and there; he had left the 
room, and returned to resume his study. Then, after closing 
the book softly, he had taken up the mark he was accus¬ 
tomed to place in the last page of his reading, and tossed it 
away. Wilfrid was prepared to clap hands when he should 
see the hated fellow drop on his knees ; but when that sight 
verified his calculation, he huddled himself exultingly in his 
couch-cloth :—it was like a confirming clamour to him that 
he was yet wholly alive. He watched the anguish of the 
prayer, and was rewarded for the strain of his faculties by 
sleep. Barto Rizzo’s rough voice awakened him. Barto 
had evidently just communicated dismal tidings to Rinaldo, 
who left the vault with him, and was absent long enough to 
make Wilfrid forget his hatred' in an irresistible desire to 
catch him by the arm and look in his face. 

“ Ah ! you have not forsaken me,” the greeting leaped 
out. 

“ Hot now,” said Rinaldo. 

“ Do you think of going ?” 

“ I will speak to you presently, my friend.” 

“ Hound!” cried Wilfrid, and turned his face to the wall. 

Until he slept, he heard the rapid travelling of a pen ; on 
his awakening, the pen vexed him like a chirping cricket 
that tells us that cock-crow is long distant when we are 
moaning for the dawn. Great drops of sweat were on 
Rinaldo’s forehead. He wrote as one who poured forth a 
history without pause. Barto’s wife came to the lamp and 
beckoned him out, bearing the lamp aw^ay. There was now 
for the first time darkness in this vault. Wilfrid called 
Rinaldo by name, and heard nothing but the fear of the 
place, which seemed to rise bristling at his voice and shrink 
from it. He called till dread of his voice held him dumb. 
“I am, then, a coward,” he thought. Hor could he by-and- 


RINALDO GUIDASCAEPI. 


OKJO 


hy repress a start of terror on hearing Rinaldo sj)eak out of 
the darkness. With screams for the lamp, and cries that 
he was suffering slow murder, he underwent a paroxysm in 
the effort to conceal his abject horror. Rinaldo sat by his 
side patiently. At last, he said: “We are both of us pri¬ 
soners on equal terms now.” That was quieting intelligence 
to Wilfrid, who asked eagerly : “ What hour is it ?” 

It was eleven of the forenoon. Wilfrid strove to dis¬ 
sociate his recollection of clear daylight from the pressure 
of the hideous featureless time surrounding him. He asked: 
“ What week ?” It was the first week in March. Wilfrid 
could not keep from sobbing aloud. In the early period of 
such a captivity, imagination, deprived of all other food, 
conjures phantasms for the employment of the brain; but 
there is still some consciousness within the torpid intellect 
wakeful to laugh at them as they fly, though they have held 
ns at their mercy. The face of time had been imaged like 
the withering mask of a corpse to him. He had felt, 
nevertheless, that things had gone on as we trust them to do 
at the closing of our eyelids: he had preserved a mystical 
remote faith in the steady running of the world above, and 
hugged it as his most precious treasure. A thunder was 
rolled in his ears when he heard of the flight of two months 
at one bound. Two big months ! He would have guessed, 
at farthest, two weeks. “ I have been two months in one 
shirt ? Impossible !” he exclaimed. His serious idea (he 
cherished it for the support of his reason) was, that the 
world above had played a mad prank since he had been 
shuffled off its stage. 

“ It can’t be March,” he said. “Is there sunlight over¬ 
head ?” 

“ It is a true Milanese March,” Rinaldo replied. 

“ Why am I kept a prisoner ?” 

“ I cannot say. There must be some idea of making use 
of you.” 

“ Have you arms ?” 

“ I have none.” 

“ You know where they’re to be had.” 

“ I know, but I would not take them, if I could. They, 
my friend, are for a better cause.” 

“ A thousand curses on your country!” cried Wilfrid. 
“ Give me air; give me freedom; I am stifled; I am eaten 


304 


VITTOEIA. 


np with dirt; I am half dead. Are we never to have the 
lamp again ?” 

“ Hear me speak,” Rinaldo stopped his ravings. “ I will 
tell you what my position is. A second attempt has been 
made to help Count Ammiani’s escape ; it has failed. He is 
detained a prisoner by the Government under the pretence 
that he is implicated in the slaying of an Austrian noble by 
the hands of two brothers, one of whom slew him justly— 
not as a dog is slain, but according to every honourable 
stipulation of the code. I w^as the witness of the deed. It 
is for me that my cousin. Count Ammiani, droops in prison 
when he should be with his bride. Let me speak on, I pray 
you. 1 have said that I stand between two lovers. I can 
release him, I know well, by giving myself up to the Govern¬ 
ment. Unless I do so instantly, he will be removed from 
Milan to one of their fortresses in the interior, and there he 
may cry to the walls and iron-bars for his trial. They ai-e 
aware that he is dear to Milan, and these two miserable 
attempts have furnished them with their excuse. Barto 
Rizzo bids me wait. I have w'aited : I can wait no longer. 
The lamp is withheld from me to stop my writing to my 
brother, that I may warn him of my design, but the letter is 
written ; the messenger is on his way to Lugano. I do not 
state my intentions before I have taken measures to accom¬ 
plish them. I am as much Barto Rizzo’s prisoner now as 
you are.” 

The plague of darkness and thirst for daylight prevented 
Wilfrid from having any other sentiment than gladness that 
a companion equally unfortunate with himself was here, and 
equally desirous to go forth. When Barto’s wife brought 
their meal, and the lamp to light them eating it, Rinaldo 
handed her pen, ink, pencil, paper, all the material of cor¬ 
respondence ; upon w^hich, as one who had received a stipu¬ 
lated exchange, she let the lamp remain. While the new 
and thrice-dear rays were illumining her dark-coloured solid 
beauty, I know not what touch of man-like envy or hurt 
vanity led Wilfrid to observe that the woman’s eyes dwelt 
wdth a singular fulness and softness on Rinaldo. It was 
fulness and softness void of fire, a true ox-eyed gaze, but 
human in the fall of the eyelids ; almost such as an early 
poet of the brush gave to the Virgin carrying her Child, 
to become an everlasting reduplicated image of a mother’s 


RINALDO GUIDASCARPI. 


305 


stron,^ beneficence of love. lie called Rinaldo’s attention to 
it when the woman had gone. Rinaldo understood his 
meaning at once. 

“ It will have to be so, I fear,” he said; “ I have thought 
of it. But if I lead her to disobey Barto, there is little hope 
for the poor soul.” He rose up straight, like one who would 
utter grace for meat. “ Must we, 0 my God, give a sacri¬ 
fice at every step ?” 

With that he resumed his seat stiffly, and bent and mur¬ 
mured to himself. Wilfrid had at one time of his life 
imagined that he was marked by a peculiar distinction from 
the common herd ; but contact with this young man taught 
him to feel his fellowship to the world at large, and to 
rejoice at it, though it partially humbled him. 

They had no further visit from Barto Rizzo. The woman 
tended them in the same unswerving silence, and at whiles 
that adorable maternity of aspect. Wilfrid was touched by 
commiseration for her. He was too bitterly fretful on 
account of clean linen and the liberty which fluttered the 
prospect of it, to think much upon what her fate might be : 
perhaps a beating, perhaps the knife. But the vileness of 
wearing one shirt two months and more had hardened his 
heart; and though he was considerate enough not to prompt 
his companion very impatiently, he submitted desperate 
futile schemes to him, and suggested—“ To-night ? —to¬ 
morrow ?—the next day ?” Rinaldo did not heed him. He 
lay on his couch like one who bleeds inwardly, thinking of 
the complacent faithfulness of that poor creature’s face. 
Barto Rizzo had sworn to him that there should be a rising 
in Milan before the month was out; but he had lost all con¬ 
fidence in Milanese risings. Ammiani would be removed, if 
he delayed; and he knew that the moment his letter reached 
Lugano, Angelo would start for Milan and claim to surrender 
in his stead. The woman came, and went forth, and Rinaldo 
did not look at her until his resolve was firm. 

He said to Wilfrid in her presence, “ Swear that you will 
reveal nothing of this house.” 

Wilfrid spiritedly pronounced his gladdest oath. 

“ It is dark in the streets,” Rinaldo addressed the woinan. 
“ Lead us out, for the hour has come when I must go.” 

She clutched her hands below her bosom to stop its great 
heaving, and stood as one smitten by the sujiden hearing of 

X. 



306 


VITTORIA. 


her sentence. The sight was pitiful, for her face scarcely 
changed; the anguish was expressionless. Rinaldo pointed 
sternly to the door. 

“ Stay,” Wilfrid interposed. “ That wretch may be in the 
house, and will kill her.” 

“ She is not thinking of herself,” said Rinaldo. 

“But, stay,” Wilfrid repeated. The woman’s way of 
taking breath shocked and enfeebled him. 

Rinaldo threw the door open. 

“ Must you ? must you ?” her voice broke. 

“ Waste no words.” 

“ You have not seen a priest.” 

“ I go to him.” 

“ You die.” 

“ What is death to me ? Be dumb, that I may think well 
of you till my last moment.” 

“ What is death to me ? Be dumb !” 

She had spoken with her eyes fixed on his couch. It was 
the figure of one upon the scaffold, knitting her frame to 
hold up a strangled heart. 

“ What is death to me ? Be dumb !” she echoed him 
many times on the rise and fall of her breathing, and turned 
to get him in her eyes. “ Be dumb ! be dumb !” She threw 
her arms wide out, and pressed his temples and kissed him. 

The scene was like hot iron to Wilfrid’s senses. When he 
heard her coolly asking him for his handkerchief to blind 
him, he had forgotten the purpose, and gave it mechanically. 
Nothing was uttered throughout the long mountings and 
descent of stairs. They passed across one corridor where 
the walls told of a humming assemblage of men within. A 
current of keen air was the first salute Wilfrid received from 
the world above ; his handkerchief was loosened; he stood 
foolish as a blind man, weak as a hospital patient, on the 
steps leading into a small square of visible darkness, and 
heard the door shut behind him. Rinaldo led him from the 
court to the street. 

“ Farewell,” he said. “ Get some housing instantly; avoid 
exposure to the air. I leave you.” 

Wilfrid spent his tongue in a fruitless and meaningless 
remonstrance. “ And you ?” he had the grace to ask. 

“ I go straight to find a priest. Farewell.” 

So they parted. 


THE FIVE DAYS OP MILAN, 


307 


CHAPTER XXX. 

EPISODES OE THE REVOLT AND THE WAR. 

THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN. 

The same hand which brought Rinaldo’s letter to his 
brother delivered a message from Barto Rizzo, bidding 
Angelo to start at once and head a stout dozen or so of 
gallant Swiss. The letter and the message appeared to be 
grievous contradictions : one was evidently a note of despair, 
while the other sang like a trumpet. But both were of a 
character to draw him swiftly on to Milan. He sent word 
to his Lugano friends, naming a village among the mountains 
between Como and Varese, that they might join him there if 
they pleased. 

Toward nightfall, on the nineteenth of the month, he stood 
with a small band of Ticinese and Italian fighting lads two 
miles distant from the city. There was a momentary break 
in long hours of rain ; the air was full of inexplicable sounds, 
that floated over them like a toning of multitudes wailing 
and singing fitfully behind a swaying screen. They bent 
their heads. At intervals a soveieign stamp on the pulsa¬ 
tion of the uproar said, distinct as a voice in the ear—Can¬ 
non. “ Milan’s alive ! ” Angelo cried, and they streamed 
forward under the hurry of stars and scud, till thumping 
guns and pattering musket-shots, the long big boom of 
surgent hosts, and the muffled voluming and crash of 
storm-bells, proclaimed that the insurrection was hot. A 
rout of peasants bearing immense ladders met them, and 
they joined with cheers, and rushed to the walls. As yet no 
gate was in the possession of the people. The walls showed 
bayonet-points : a thin edge of steel encircled a pit of fire. 
Angelo resolved to break through at once. The peasants 
hesitated, but his own men were of one mind to follow, and, 
planting his ladder in the ditch, he rushed up foremost. 
The ladder was full short; he called out in German to a 
soldier to reach his hand down, and the butt-end of a musket 
was dropped, which he grasped, and by this aid sprang to 
the parapet, and was seized. “ Stop,” he said, “ there’s a 
fellow below with my brandy-flask and portmanteau.” 
The soldiers were Italians; they laughed, and hauled away 


308 


VITTORIA. 


at mnn after man of the mounting troop, calling alternately 
“brandy-flask!—portmanteau!” as each one raised a head 
above the parapet. “ The signor has a good supply of 
spirits and baggage,” they remarked. He gave them money 
for porterage, saying, “ You see, the gates are held by that 
infernal people, and a quiet traveller must come over the 
walls. Viva ITtalia ! who follows me ? ” He carried away 
three of those present. The remainder swore that they and 
their comrades would be on his side on the morrow. Guided 
by the new accession to his force, Angelo gained the streets. 
All shots had ceased; the streets were lighted with torches 
and hand-lamps ; barricades were up everywhere, like a con¬ 
vulsion of the earth. Tired of receiving challenges and 
mounting the endless piles of stones, he sat down at the head 
of the Corso di Porta Nuova, and took refreshments from the 
hands of ladies. The house-doors were all open. The 
ladies came forth bearing wine and minestra, meat and 
bread, on trays ; and quiet eating and drinking, and fortify¬ 
ing of the barricades, went on. Men were rubbing their 
arms and trying rusty gun-locks. Few of them had not 
seen Barto Rizzo that day; but Angelo could get no tidings 
of his brother. He slept on a door-step, dreaming that he 
was blown about among the angels of heaven and hell by a 
glorious tempest. Near morning an officer of volunteers 
came to inspect the barricade defences. Angelo knew him 
by sight; it was Luciano Romara. He explained the posi¬ 
tion of the opposing forces. The Marshal, he said, was 
clearly no street-fighter. Estimating the army under his 
orders in Milan at from ten to eleven thousand men of all 
ai^ms, it was impossible for him to guard the gates and the 
wmlls, and at the same time fight the city. Nor could he 
provision his troops. Yesterday the troops had made one 
charge and done mischief, but they had immediately retired. 
“ And if they take to cannonading us to-day, we shall know 
what that means,” Romara concluded. Angelo wanted to 
join him. “ No, stay here,” said Romara. “ I think you 
are a man who w'on’t give ground.” He had not seen either 
Rinaldo or Ammiani, but spoke of both. as certain to bo 
rescued. Rain and cannon filled the weary space of that 
day. Some of the barricades fronting the city gates had 
been battered down by nightfall; they were restored within 
an hour. Their defenders entered the houses right and left 


TEE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN. 


309 


during the cannonade, waiting to meet the charge; but the 
Austrians held off. “ They have no plan,” Romara said on his 
second visit of inspection ; “they are waiting on Fortune, and 
starve meanwhile. We can beat them at that business.” 
Romara took Angelo and his Swiss away with him. The interior 
of the city was abandoned by the Imperialists, w^ho held two or 
three of the principal buildings and the square of the Duomo. 
Clouds were driving thick across the cold-gleaming sky when 
the storm-bells burst out with the wild Jubilee-music of 
insurrection—a carol, a jangle of all discord, savage as flame. 
Every church of the city lent its iron tongue to the peal; 
and now they joined and now rolled apart, now joined again 
and clanged like souls shrieking across the black gulfs of an 
earthquake; they swam aloft with mournful delirium, tumbled 
together, were scattered in spray, dissolved, renewed, d’ed, 
as a last worn wave casts itself on an unfooted shore, and 
rang again as through rent doorways, became a clamorous 
host, an iron body, a pressure as of a down-drawm firmament, 
and once more a hollow vast, as if the abysses of the Circles 
were sounded through and through. To the Milanese it was 
an intoxication; it w'as the howling of madness to the 
Austrians—a torment and a terror: they could neither sing, 
nor laugh, nor talk under it. Where they stood in the city, 
the troops could barely hear their officers’ call of command. 
Eo sooner had the bells broken out than the length of every 
street and Corso flashed with the tri-coloured flag; musket- 
muzzles peeped from the windows ; men with great squares 
of pavement lined the roofs. Romara mounted a stiff barri¬ 
cade and beheld a scattered regiment running the gauntlet 
of storms of shot and missiles, in full retreat upon the citadel. 
On they came, officers in front for the charge, as usual with 
the Austrians; fire on both flanks, a furious mob at their 
heels, and the barricade before them. They rushed at Romara, 
and were hurled back, and stood in a riddled lump. Suddenly 
Romara knocked up the rifles of the couching Swiss ; he 
yelled to the houses to stop firing. “ Surrender your prisoners, 
—you shall pass,” he called. He had seen one dear head in 
the knot of the soldiery. Ho answer was given. Romara, 
with Angelo and his Swiss and the ranks of the barricade, 
poured over and pierced the streaming mass, steel for steel. 

“Ammiani! Ammiani !” Romara cried; a i*oar from the 
other side, “ Barto! Barto! the Great Cat!” met the cry. 


310 


VITTOrjA. 


The Austrians struck up a cheer under the iron derision of 
the bells; it was ludicrous ; it was as if a door had slammed 
on their mouths, ringing tremendous echoes in a vaulted roof. 
They stood sweeping fire in two oblong lines; a show of 
military array was preserved like a tattered robe, till Romara 
drove at their centre and left the retreat clear across the 
barricade. Then the whitecoats were seen flowing over, the 
motley surging hosts from the city in pursuit—foam of a 
storm-torrent hurled forward by the black tumult of pre¬ 
cipitous waters. Angelo fell on his brother’s neck ; Romara 
clasped Carlo Ammiani. These two were being marched 
from the prison to the citadel when Barto Rizzo, who had 
prepared to storm the building, assailed the troops. To him 
mainly they were indebted for their rescue. 

Even in that ecstasy of meeting, the young men smiled at 
the preternatural transport on his features as he bounded by 
them, mad for slaughter, and mounting a small brass gun 
on the barricade, sent the charges of shot into the rear of 
the enemy. He kissed the black lip of his little thunderer 
in a rapture of passion; called it his wife, his naked wife; 
the best of mistresses, who spoke only when he charged her 
to speak; raved that she was fair, and liked hugging; that 
she was true, and the handsomest daughter of Italy; that 
she would be the mother of big ones—none better than 
herself, though they were mountains of suljDhur big enough 
to make one gulp of an army. 

His wife in the flesh stood at his feet with a hand-grenade 
and a rifle, daggers and pistols in her belt. Her face was 
black with powder-smoke as the muzzle of the gun. She 
looked at Rinaldo once, and Rinaldo at her; both dropped 
their eyes, for their joy at seeing one another alive was 
mighty. 

Head Austrians were gathered in a heap. Dead and 
wounded Milanese were taken into the houses. Wine was 
brought forth by ladies and household women. An old 
crutched beggar, who had performed a deed of singular 
intrepidity in himself kindling a fire at the door of one of 
the principal buildings besieged by the people, and who 
showed perforated rags with a comical ejaculation of thanks 
to the Austrians for knowing how to hit a scarcecrow and 
make a beggar holy, was the object of particular attention. 
Barto seated him on his gun, saying that his mistress and 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN. 


311 


beauty "was honoured; ladies were proud in waiting on the 
fine frowzy old man. It chanced during that morning that 
Wilfrid Pierson had attached himself to Lieutenant Jenna’s 
regiment as a volunteer. He had no arms, nothing but a 
huge white umbrella, under which he walked dry in the 
heavy rain, and passed through the fire like an impassive 
spectator df queer events. Angelo’s Swiss had captured 
them, and the mob were maltreating them because they 
declined to shout for this valorous ancient beggarman. “Ho 
doubt he’s a capital fellow,” said Jenna; “but ‘ Viva Scot- 
toGorni ’ is not my language and the spirited little subaltern 
repeated his “ Excuse me” with very good temper, while one 
knocked off his shako, another tugged at his coat-skirts. 
Wilfrid sang out to the Guidascarpi, and the brothers sprang 
to him and set them free; but the mob, like any other wild 
beast gorged with blood, wanted play, and urged Barto to 
insist that these victims should shout the viva in exaltation 
of their hero. 

“ Is there a finer voice than mine ?” said Barto, and he 
roared the ‘ viva ’ like a melodious bull. Yet Wilfrid saw 
that he had been recognized. In the hour of triumph Barto 
Rizzi had no lust for petty vengeance. The magnanimous 
devil plumped his gorge contentedly on victory. His ardour 
blazed from his swarthy crimson features like a blown fire, 
when scouts came running down with word that all about 
the Porta Camosina, Madonna del Carmine, and the Gardens, 
the Austrians were reaping the white flag of the inhabitants 
of that district. Thitherward his cry of “ Down with the 
Tedeschi !” led the boiling tide. Rinaldo drew Wilfrid and 
Jenna to an open doorway, counselling the latter to strip the 
gold from his coat and speak his Italian in monosyllables. 
A woman of the house gave her promise to shelter and to 
pass them forward. Romara, Ammiani, and the Guida¬ 
scarpi, went straight to the Casa Gonfalonieri, where they 
hoped to see stray members of the Council of War, and hear 
a correction of certain unpleasant rumours concerning the 
dealings of the Provisional Government with Charles Albert. 
The first crack of a division between the patriot force and 
the aristocracy commenced this day; the day following it 
was a breach. 

A little before dusk the bells of the city ceased their 
hammering, and when they ceased, all noises of men and 


312 


VITTOEIA. 


musketry seemed ckildisk. The Tvoman who had promised 
to lead Wilfrid and Jenna to the citadel, feared no longer 
either for herself or them, and passed them on up the Corso 
Francesco past the Contrada del Monte. Jenna pointed out 
the Duchess of Graiitli’s house, saying, “ By the way, the 
Lenkensteins are here; they left Venice last week. Of 
course you know, or don’t you ?—and there they must stop, 

I suppose.” Wilfrid nodded an immediate good-bye to him, 
and crossed to the house-door. His eccentric fashion of 
acting had given him fame in the army, but Jenna stormed 
at it now, and begged him to come on and present himself to 
General Schoneck, if not to General Pierson. Wilfrid 
refused even to look behind him. In fact, it was a part of 
the gallant fellow’s coxcombry (or nationality) to play the 
Englishman. He remained fixed by the house-door till mid¬ 
night, when a body of men in the garb of citizens, volubly 
and violently Italian in their talk, struck thrice at the door. 
Wilfrid perceived Count Lenkenstein among them. The 
ladies Bianca, Anna, and Lena, issued mantled and hooded 
between the lights of two barricade watchfires. Wilfrid 
stepped after them. They had the pass-word, for the barri¬ 
cades were crossed. The captain of the head-barricade in 
the CoriiO demurred, requiring a counter-sign. Straightway 
he was cut down. He blew an alarm-call, when up sprang 
a hundred torches. The band of Germans dashed at the 
barricade as at the tusks of a boar. They were picked men, 
most of them officers, but a scanty number in the thick of 
an armed populace. Wilfrid saw the lighted passage into 
the great house, and thither, throwing out his arms, he bore 
the affrighted group of ladies, as a careful shepherd might 
do. Returning to Count Lenkenstein’s side, “ Where are 
they ?” the count said, in mortal dread. “ Safe,” Wilfrid 
replied. The count frowned at him inquisitively. “ Cut 
your way through, and on !” he cried to three or four Avho 
hung near him ; and these went to the slaughter. 

“ Why do you stand by me, sir P’ said the count. Interior 
barricades were pouring their combatants to the spot; 
Count Lenkenstein was plunged upon the door-steps. Wil¬ 
frid gained half-a-minute’s parley by shouting in his foreign 
accent, “ Would you hurt an Englishman ?” Some one took 
him by the arm, and helping to raise the count, hurried 
them both into the house. 


THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN. 313 

“ You must make excuses for popular fury in times like 
these,” the stranger observed. 

The Austrian nobleman asked him stiffly for his name. 
The name of Count Ammiani was given. “ I think you 
know it,” Carlo added. 

“You escaped from your lawful imprisonment this day, 
did you not ?—you and your cousin, the assassin. I talk of 
law ! I might as justly talk of honour. Who lives here ‘t” 
Carlo contained himself to answer, “ The present occupant 
is, I believe, if I have hit the house I was seeking, the Coun¬ 
tess dTsorella.” 

“ My family were placed here, sir ?” Count Lenkenstein 
inquired of Wilfrid. But Wilfrid’s attention was frozen by 
the sight of Vittoria’s lover. A wifely call of “Adalbert ” 
from above quieted the count’s anxiety. 

“ Countess d’Isorella,” he said. “ I know that woman. 
She belongs to the secret cabinet of Carlo Alberto—a woman 
with three edges. Did she not visit you in prison two weeks 
ago ? I speak to you. Count Ammiani. She applied to the 
Archduke and the Marshal for permission to visit you. It 
was accorded. To the devil with our days of benignity! 
She was from Turin. The shuffle has made her my hostess 
for the nonce. I will go to her. You, sir,” the count turned 
to Wilfrid—“ you will stay below. Are you in the pay of 
the insurgents ?” 

Wilfrid, the weakest of human beings where women were 
involved with him, did one of the hardest things which can 
task a young man’s fortitude : he looked his superior in the 
face, and neither blenched, nor frowned, nor spoke. 

Ammiani spoke for him. “ There is no pay given in our 
ranks.” 

“ The licence to rob is supposed to be an equivalent,” said 
the count. 

Countess d’Isorella herself came downstairs, with profuse 
apologies for the absence of all her male domestics, and 
many delicate dimples about her mouth in uttering them. 
Her look at Ammiani struck Wilfrid as having a peculiai 
burden either of meaning or of passion in it. The couni 
grimaced angrily when he heard that his sister Lena was 
not yet able to bear the fatigue of a walk to the citadel. 
“ I fear you must all be my guests, for an hour at least,*' 
said the countess. 


314 


VITTOEIA. 


Wilfrid "was left pacing the hall. He thought he had 
never beheld so splendid a person, or one so subj ugatingly 
gracious. Her speech and manner poured oil on the uncivil 
Austrian noblemen. What perchance had stricken Lena ? 
He guessed; and guessed it rightly. A folded scrap of 
paper signed by the Countess of Lenkenstein was brought 
to him. 

It said:—“ Are you making common ^cause with the 
rebels ? Reply. One asks who should be told.” 

He wrote:—“ I am an outcast of the army. I fight as a 
volunteer with the K. K. troops. Could I abandon them in 
their peril ?” 

The touch of sentiment he appended for Lena’s comfort. 
He was too strongly impressed by the new vision of beauty 
in the house for his imagination to be flushed by the romantic 
posture of his devotion to a trailing flag. 

No other message was delivered. Ammiani presently 
descended and obtained a guard from the barricade; word 
was sent on to the barricades in advance toward the citadel. 
Wilfrid stood aside as Count Lenkenstein led the ladies to 
the door, bearing Lena on his arm. She passed her lover 
veiled. The count said, “You follow.” Housed the menial 
second person plural of German, and repeated it peremp¬ 
torily. 

“ 1 follow no civilian,” said Wilfrid. 

“ Remember, sir, tliat if you are seen with arms in your 
hands, and are not in the ranks, you run the chances of 
being hanged.” 

Lena broke loose from her brother ; in spite of Anna’s 
sharp remonstrance and the count’s vexed stamp of the 
foot, she implored her lover :—“ Come with us ; pardon us ; 
protect me—me !, You shall not be treated harshly. They 

shall not- Oh! be near me. I have been ill; I shrink 

from danger. Be near me!” 

Such humble pleading permitted Wilfrid’s sore spirit to 
succumb with the requisite show of chivalrous dignity. He 
bowed, and gravely opened his enormous umbrella, which he 
held up over the heads of the ladies, while Ammiani led the 
way. All was quiet near the citadel. A fog of plashing 
rain hung in red gloom about the many watch-fires of the 
insurgents, but the Austrian head-quarters lay sombre and 
still* Close at the gates, Ammiani saluted the ladies. 



THE FIVE DATS OF MILAN. 315 

Wilfrid did the same, and heard Lena’s call to him un¬ 
moved. 

“ May I dare to hint to you that it -would he better for 
you to join your party ?” said Amniiani. 

Wilfrid -walked on. After appearing to -weigh the matter, 
he ans-wered, “ The umbrella will be of no further service to 
them to-night.” 

Ammiani laughed, and begged to be forgiven; but he 
could have done nothing more flattering. 

Sore at all points, tricked and ruined, irascible under the 
sense of his injuries, hating everybody and not honouring 
himself, Wilfrid was fast growing to be an eccentric by 
profession. To appear cool and careless was the great effort 
of his mind. 

“We were introduced one day in the Piazza d’Armi,” said 
Ammiani. “ I would have found means to convey my 
apologies to you for my behaviour on that occasion, but I 
have been at the mercy of my enemies. Lieutenant Pierson, 
will you pardon me ? I have learnt how dear you and your 
family should be to me. Pray, accept my excuses and my 
counsel. The Countess Lena was my friend when I was a 
boy. She is in deep distress.” 

“ I thank you. Count Ammiani, for your extremely dis¬ 
interested advice,” said Wilfrid; but the Italian was not 
cut to the quick by his irony ; and he added : “ I have 
hoisted, you perceive, the white umbrella instead of wearing 
the white coat. It is almost as good as an hotel in these 
times; it gives as much shelter and nearly as much pro¬ 
vision, and, I may say, better attendance. Good-night. 
You will be at it again about daylight, I suppose ?” 

“ Possibly a little before,” said Ammiani, cooled by the 
false ring of this kind of speech. 

“ It’s useless to expect that your infernal bells will not 
burst out like all the lunatics on earth ?” 

“ Quite useless, I fear. Good-night.’ 

Ammiani charged one of the men at an outer barricade to 
follow the white umbrella and pass it on. 

He returned to the Countess d’Isorella, who was aw^aiting 
him, and alone. 

This glorious head had aroused his first boyish passion. 
Scandal was busy concerning the two, when Violetta d’Asola, 
the youthfullest widow in Lombardy and the loveliest 


316 


VITTOEIA. 


woman, gave her hand to Connt d’Isorella, who took it with¬ 
out question of the boy Ammiani. Carlo’s mother assisted in 
that arrangement; a maternal plot, for which he could thank 
her only after he had seen Vittoria, and then had heard the 
buzz of whispers at Violetta’s name. Countess d’Isorella 
proved her friendship to have survived the old passion, by 
travelling expressly from Turin to obtain leave to visit him 
in prison. It was a marvellous face to look upon between 
prison walls. Rescued while the soldiers were marching 
him to the citadel that day, he was called by pure duty to 
pay his respects to the countess as soon as he had heard 
from his mother that she was in the city. Nor was his 
mother sorry that he should go. She had patiently submitted 
to the fact of his betrothal to Vittoria, which was his safe¬ 
guard in similar perils ; and she rather hoped for Violetta 
to wean him from his extreme republicanism. By arguments ? 
By influence, perhaps. Carlo’s republicanism was preter¬ 
natural in her sight, and she presumed that Violetta would 
talk to him discreetly and persuasively of the noble designs 
of the king. 

Violetta d’Isorella received him with a gracious lifting of 
her fingers to his lips ; congratulating him on his escape, and 
on the good fortune of the day. She laughed at the Len- 
kensteins and the singular Englishman ; sat down to a little 
supper-tray, and pouted humorously as she asked him to 
feed on confects and wine ; the huge appetites of the insur¬ 
gents had devoured all her meat and bread. 

“ Why are you here ?” he said. 

She did well in replying boldly, “ For the king.’* 

“ Would you tell another that it is for the king ?” 

“Would I speak to another as I speak to you 

Ammiani inclined his head. 

They spoke of the prospects of the insurrection, of the 
expected outbreak in Venice, the eruption of Paris and 
Vienna, and the new life of Italy; touching on Carlo Alberto 
to explode the truce in a laughing dissension. At last she 
said seriously, “ I am a born Venetian, you know ; I am not 
Piedmontese. Let me be sure that the king betrays the 
country, and I will prefer many heads to one. Excuse me if 
I am more womanly just at present. The king has sent his 
accredited messenger Tartini to the Provisional Government, 
requesting it to accept his authority. Why not ? why not ? 


THE FIVE DAYS OP MILAN. 


317 


on both sides. Count Medole gives his adhesion to the king, 
but you have a Council of War that rejects the king’s over¬ 
tures—a revolt within a revolt. It is deplorable. You must 
have an army. The Piedmontese once over the Ticino, how 
can you act in opposition to it ? You must learn to take a 
master. The king is only, or he appears, tricksy because 
you compel him to wind and counterplot. I swear to you, 
Italy is his foremost thought. The Star of Italy sits on the 
Cross of Savoy.” 

Ammiani kept his eyelids modestly down. “ Ten thou¬ 
sand to plead for him, such as you!” he said. “ But there 
is only one!” 

“ If you had been headstrong once upon a time, and I 
had been weak, you see, my Carlo, you would have been a 
domestic tyrant, I a rebel. You will not admit the existence 
of a virtue in an opposite opinion. Wise was your mother 
when she said ‘ No ’ to a wilful boy 1” 

Violetta lit her cigareito and puffed the smoke lightly. 

*• I told you in that horrid dungeon, my. Carlo Amaranto— 
I call you by the old name—the old name is sweet 1—I told 
you that your Vittoria is enamoured of the king. She 
blushes like a battle-flag for the king. I have heard her 
‘ Viva il Re !’ It was musical.” 

“ So I should have thought.” 

“ Ay, but my amaranto-innamorato, does it not foretell 
strife? Would you ever—ever take a heart with a king’s 
head stamped on it into your arms ?’” 

“ Give me the chance!” 

He was guilty of this'ardent piece of innocence though 
Violetta had pitched her voice in the key significant of a 
secret thing belonging to two memories that had not always 
flowed dividedly. 

“ Like a common coin ?” she resumed. 

“ A heart with a king's head stamped on it like a common 
coin." 

He recollected the sentence. He had once, during the 
heat of his grief for Giacomo Piaveni, cast it in her teeth. 

Violetta repeated it, as to herself, tonelessly; a method 
of making an old unkindness strike back on its author with 
effect. 

“ Did we part good friends ? I forget,” she broke the 
silence. 


318 


VITTOEIA. 


“We meet, and we will be tbe best of friends,” said 
Ammiani. 

“Tell your mother I am not three years older than her 
son,—I am thirty. Who will make me young again ? Tell 
her, my Carlo, that the genius for intrigue, of which she 
accuses me, develops at a surprising rate. As regards my 

beauty-” the countess put a tooth of pearl on her soft 

underlip. 

Ammiani assured her that he would find words of his own 
for her beauty. 

“ I hear the eulogy, I know the sonnet, ” said Violetta, 
smiling, and described the points of a brunette : the thick 
black banded hair, the full brown eyes, the plastic brows 
couching over them ;—it was Vittoria’s face. Violetta was 
a flower of colour, fair, with but one shade of dark tinting 
on her brown eye-brows and eye-lashes, as you may see a 
strip of night-cloud cross the forehead of morning. She was 
yellow-haired, almost purple-eyed, so rich was the blue of 
the pupils. Vittoria could be sallow in despondency; but 
this Violetta never failed in plumpness and freshness. The 
pencil which had given her aspect the one touch of discord, 
endowed it with a subtle harmony, like mystery ; and Am¬ 
miani remembered his having stood once on the Lido of 
Venice, and eyed the dawn across the Adriatic, and dreamed 
that Violetta was born of the loveliness and held in her 
bosom the hopes of morning. He dreamed of it now, feeling 
the smooth roll of a torrent. 

A cry of “ Arms !” rang down the length of the 
Corso. 

He started to his feet thankfully. 

“ Take me to your mother,” she said. “ I loathe to hear 
firing and be alone.” 

Ammiani threw up the window. There was a stir of 
lamps and torches'below, and the low sky hung red. Violetta 
stood quickly thick-shod and hooded. 

“ Your mother will admit my companionship. Carlo 

“ She desires to thank you.” 

“ She has no longer any fear of me ?” 

“ You will find her of one mind with you.” 

“ Concerning the king !” 

I would say, on most subjects.” 

“ But that you do not know my mind ! You are modest. 



THE FIVE DAYS OF MILAN. 


Confess tliat you are thinking the hour you have passed 
Avith me has been wasted.” 

“ I am, now I hear the call to arms.” 

“ If I had all the while entertained you with talk of your 
Yittoria! It would not have been wasted then, my ama- 
ranto. It is not wasted for me. If a shot should strike 
you-” 

“Tell her I died loving her with all my soul 1” cried 
Ammiani. 

Violetta’s frame quivered as if he had smitten her. 

They left the house. Countess Ammiani’s door was the 
length of a barricade distant: it swung open to them, like 
all the other house-doors which were, or wished to be es¬ 
teemed, true to the cause, and hospitable toward patriots. 

“ Remember, when you need a refuge, my villa is on 
Lago Maggiore,” Violetta said, and kissed her finger-tips 
to him. 

An hour after, by the light of this unlucky little speech, 
he thought of her as a shameless coquette. “ When I need 
a refuge ? Is not Milan in arms ?—Italy alive ? She con¬ 
siders it all a passing epidemic; or, perhaps, she is to plead 
for me to the king !” 

That set him thinking moodily over the things she had 
uttered of Vittoria’s strange and sudden devotion to the 
king. 

Rainy dawn and the tongues of the churches ushered in 
the last day of street fighting. Ammiani found Romara 
and Colonel Corte at the head of strong bodies of volunteers, 
well-armed, ready to march for the Porta Tosa. All three 
went straight to the house where the Provisional Govern¬ 
ment sat. and sword in hand denounced Count Medole as a 
traitor who sold his country to the king. Corte dragged 
him to the window to hear the shouts for the Republic. 
Medole wrote their names down one by one, and said, 
“ Shall I leave the date vacant ?” They put themselves 
at the head of their men, and marched in the ringing 
of the bells. The bells were their sacro-military music. 
Barto Rizzo was off to make a spring at the Porta 
Ticinese. Students, peasants, noble youths of the best 
blood, old men and young women, stood ranged in the 
drenching rain, eager to face death for freedom. At mid¬ 
day the bells were answered by cannon and the blunt snap 



VITTORIA. 


.yj 

of musketr j volleys; dull, savage responses, as of a "wounded 
great beast giving short howls and snarls by the intermin¬ 
able over-roaring of a cataract. Messengers from the gates 
came running to the quiet centre of the city, where cool 
men discoursed and plotted. Great news, big lies, were 
shouted:—Carlo Alberto thundered in the plains; the 
Austrians were everywhere retiring; the Marshal was a 
prisoner; the flag of surrender was on the citadel! These 
things were for the ears of thirsty women, diplomatists, and 
cripples. 

Countess Ammiani and Countess dTsorella sat together 
throughout the agitation of the day. 

The life prayed for by one seemed a wisp of straw flung 
on this humming furnace. 

Countess Ammiani was too well used to defeat to believe 
readily in victory, and had shrouded her head in resignation 
too long to hope for what she craved. Her hands were 
ioined softly in her lap. Her visage had the same unmoved 
expression when she conversed with Violetta as when she 
listened to the ravings of the Corso. 

Darkness came, and the bells ceased not rolling by her 
open windows ; the clouds .were like mists of conflagration. 

She would not have the windows closed. The noise of 
the city had become familiar and akin to the image of her 
boy. She sat there cloaked. 

Her heart went like a time-piece to the two interrogations 
to heaven : “ Alive ?—or dead ?” 

The voice of Luciano Romara was that of an angel’s 
answering. He entered the room neat and trim as a cavalier 
dressed for social evening duty, saying with his fine tact, 
“We are all well;” and after talking like a gazette of the 
Porta Tosa taken by the volunteers, Earto Rizzo’s occupa¬ 
tion of the gate opening on the Ticino, and the bursting of 
the Porta Camosina by the freehands of the plains, he 
handed a letter to Countess Ammiani. 

“Carlo is on the march to Bergamo and Brescia, with 
Corte, Sana, and about fifty of our men,” he said. 

“ And is wounded—where ?” asked Violetta. 

“ Slightly in the hand—you see, he can march,” Romara 
said, laughing at her promptness to suspect a subterfuge, 
antil he thought, “ Row, what does this mean, madam ?” 

A lamp was brought to Countess Ammiani. She read ;— 


THE FIVE DAYS OP MILAN. 


321 


“ Mt Mother ! 

“ Cotton-wool on the left fore-finger. They deigned to 
give me no other memorial of my first fight. I am not 
worthy of papa’s two bullets. I march with Corte and Sana 
to Brescia. We keep the passes of the Tyrol. Luciano 
heads five hundred up to the hills to-morrow or next clay. 
He must have all our money. Then go from door to door 
and beg subscriptions. Yes, my Chief! it is to be like God, 
and deserving of his gifts to lay down all pride, all wealth. 
This night send to my betrothed in Turin. She must be 
with no one but my mother. It is my command. Tell her 
so. I hold imperatively to it. 

“ I breathe the best air of life. Luciano is a fine leader in 
action, calm as in a ball-room. What did I feel ? I will 
talk of it with you by-and-by;—my father whispered in my 
ears ; I felt him at my right hand. He said, ‘ J died for 
this day.’ I feel now that I must have seen him. This is 
imagination. We may say that anything is imagination. I 
certainly heard his voice. Be of good heart, my mother, 
for I can swear that the General wakes up when I strike 
Austrian steel. He loved Brescia; so I go there. God 
preserve my mother! The eyes of heaven are wide enough 
to see us both. Vittoria by your side, remember I It is my 
will. 


“ Carlo.” 


Countess Ammiani closed her eyes over the letter, as in a 
dead sleep. “ He is more his father than himself, and so sud¬ 
denly!” she said. She was tearless. Violetta helped her 
to her bed-room under the pretext of a desire to hear the con¬ 
tents of the letter. 

That night, which ended the five days of battle in Milan, 
while fires were raging at many gates, bells were rolling 
over the roof-tops, the army of Austria coiled along the North¬ 
eastern walls of the city, through rain and thick obscurity, 
and wove its way like a vast worm into the outer land. 


322 


VITTORTA. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR. 

VITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER. 

Countess dTsorella’s peculiar mission to Milan was over 
with the victory of the city. She undertook personally to 
deliver Carlo’s injunction to Vittoria on her way to the king. 
Countess Ammiani deemed it sufficient that her son’s wishes 
should be repeated verbally; and as there appeared to be no 
better messenger than one who was bound for Turin and 
knew Vittoria’s place of residence, she entrusted the duty to 
* Violetta. 

The much which hangs on little was then set in motion. 

Violetta was crossing the Ticino when she met a Milanese 
nobleman who had received cold greeting from the king, and 
was returning to Milan with word that the Piedmontese 
declaration of war against Austria had been signed. She 
went back to Milan, saw and heard, and gathered a burden 
for the royal ears. This was a woman, tender only to the 
recollection of past days, who used her beauty and her arts 
as weapons for influence. She liked kings because she saw 
neither master nor dupe in a republic ; she liked her early 
lover because she could see nothing but a victim in any new 
one. She was fond of Carlo, as greatly occupied minds may 
be attached to an old garden where they have aforetime 
sown fair seed. Jealousy of a rival in love that was discon¬ 
nected with political business and her large expenditure, had 
never yet disturbed the lady’s nerves. 

At Turin sli^ found Vittoria singing at the opera, and 
winning marked applause from the royal box. She thought 
sincerely that to tear a prima donna from her glory would 
be very much like dismissing a successful General to his 
home and gabbling family. A most eminent personage 
agreed with her. Vittoria w’^as carelessly informed that 
Count Ammiani had gone to Brescia, and having regard for 
her safety, desired her to go to Milan to be under the protec¬ 
tion of his mother, and that Countess Ammiani w^as willing 
to receive her. 

Now, with her mother, and her maid Giacinta, and Beppo 
gathered about her, for three weeks Vittoria had been in 


VITTOPJA DISOBEYS HER LOVER. 


323 


full operatic career, working, winning fame, believing that 
she w*as winning influence, and establishing a treasury. The 
presence of her lover in Milan would have called her to the 
noble city ; but he being at Brescia, she asked herself why 
she should abstain from labours which contributed mate¬ 
rially to the strength of the revolution and made her helpful. 
It was doubtful whether Countess Ammiani would permit 
her to sing at La Scala; or whether the city could support 
an opera in the throes of war. And Vittoria was sending 
money to Milan. The stipend paid to her by the impresario, 
the jewels, the big bouquets—all flowed into the treasury of 
the insurrection. Antonio-Pericles advanced her a large 
sum on the day when the news of the Milanese uprising 
reached Turin : the conditions of the loan had simply been 
that she should continue her engagement to sing in Turin. 
He was perfectly slavish to her, and might be trusted to 
advance more. Since the great night at La Scala, she had 
been often depressed by a secret feeling that there was 
divorce between her love of her country and devotion to her 
Art. How that both passions were in union, both active, 
each aiding the fire of the other, she lived a consummate 
life. She could not have abandoned her path instantly 
though Carlo had spoken his command to her in person. 
Such were her first S23ontaneous reasonings, and Laura 
Piaveni seconded them ; saying, “ Money, money! we must 
be Jews for money. We women are not allowed to fight, 
but we can manage to contribute our lire and soldi ; we can 
forge the sinews of war.” 

Vittoria wrote respectfully to Countess Ammiani stating 
why she declined to leave Turin. The letter was poorly 
worded. While writing it she had been taken by a senti¬ 
ment of guilt and of isolation in presuming to disobey her 
lover. “ I am glad he will not see it,” she remarked to 
Laura, who looked rapidly across the lines, and said nothing. 
Praise of the king was in the last sentence. Laura’s eyes 
lingered on it half-a-minute. 

“ Has he not drawn his sword ? He is going to march,” 
said Vittoria. 

“ Oh, yes,” Laura replied coolly; “ but you put that to 
please Countess Ammiani.” 

Vittoria confessed she had not written it purposely to 
defend the king. “ What harm ?” she asked. 

Y 2 


324 


VITTORTA. 


“ I^Tone. Only this playing with shades allows men to 
call ns hypocrites.” 

The observation angered Vittoria. She had seen the 
king of late ; she had breathed Turin incense and its atmo¬ 
sphere ; much that could be pleaded on the king’s behalf 
she had listened to with the sympathetic pity which can be 
a woman’s best judgement, and is the sentiment of reason. 
She had also brooded over the king’s character, and had 
thought that if the Chief could have her opportunities for 
studying this little impressible, yet strangely impulsive 
royal nature, his severe condemnation of him would be tem¬ 
pered. In fact, she was doing what makes a woman excess¬ 
ively tender and opinionated ; she was petting her idea of 
the misunderstood one : she was thinking that she divined 
the king’s character by mystical intuition; I will dare to 
say, maternally apprehended it. And it was a character 
strangely open to feminine perceptions, while to masculine 
comprehension it remained a dead blank, done either in 
black or in white. 

Vittoria insisted on praising the king to Laura. 

“ With all my heart,” Laura said, “ so long as he is true 
to Italy.” 

“ How, then, am I hypocritical ?” 

“My Sandra, you are certainly perverse. You admitted 
that you did something for the sake of pleasing Countess 
Ammiani.” 

“ I did. But to be hypocritical one must be false.” 

“ Oh !” went Laura. 

“And I write to Carlo. He does not care for the king; 
therefore it is needless for me to name the king to him ; and 
I shall not.” 

Laura said, “Very well.” She saw a little deeper than 
the perversity, though she did not see the springs. In 
Vittoria’s letter to her lover, she made no allusion to the 
Sword of Italy. 

Countess Ammiani forwarded both letters on to Brescia. 

When Carlo had finished reading them, he heard all 
Brescia clamouring indignantly at the king for having dis¬ 
armed volunteers on Lago Maggiore and elsewhere in his 
dominions. Milan was sending word by every post of the 
overbearing arrogance of the Piedmontese officers and 
officials, who claimed a prostrate submission from a city 


VITTOPJA DISOBEYS HER LOVER. 


325 


fresh with the ardour of the glory it had won for itself, and 
that would fain have welcomed them as brothers. Romara 
and others wrote of downright visible betrayal. It was a 
time of passions:—great readiness for generosity, equal 
promptitude for undiscriminating hatred. Carlo read 
Vittoria’s praise of the king with insufferable anguish. 
“You—you part of me, can write like this !” he struck the 
paper vehemently. The fury of action transformed the 
gentle youth. Countess Ammiani would not have forwarded 
the letter addressed to herself had she dreamed the mischief 
it might do. Carlo saw double-dealing in the absence of 
any mention of the king in his own letter. 

“ Quit Turin at once,” he dashed hasty lines to Yittoria; 
“ and no ‘ Yiva il Re ’ till we know what he may merit. Old 
delusions are pardonable ; but you must now look abroad 
with your eyes. Your words should be the echoes of my 
soul. Your acts are mine. For the sake of the country, do 
nothing to fill me with shame. The king is a traitor. I 
remember things said of him by Agostino; I subscribe to 
them every one. Were you like any other Italian girl, you 
might cry for him—who would care ! But you are Yittoria. 
Fly to my mother’s arms, and there rest. The king betrays 
us. Is a stronger word necessary ? I am writing too 
harshly to you;—and here are the lines of your beloved 
letter throbbing round me while I write ; but till the last 
shot is fired I try to be iron, and would hold your hand and 
not kiss it—not be mad to fall between your arms—not wish 
for you—not think of you as a woman, as my beloved, as my 
Yittoria; I hope and pray not, if I thought there was an ace 
of woi'k left to do for the country. Or if one could say that 
you cherished a shred of loyalty for him who betrays it. 

Great heaven ! am I to imagine that royal flatteries- My 

hand is not my own ! You shall see all that it writes. I 
wdll seem to you no better than I am. I do not tell you to 
be a Republican, but an Italian. If I had room for myself 
in my prayers—oh ! one half-instant to look on you, though 
with chains on my limbs. The sky and the solid ground 
break up when I think of you. I fancy I am still in prison. 
Angelo was music to me for two whole days (without a 
morning to the first and a night to the second). He will be 
bere to-morrow and talk of you again. I long for him more 



326 


VITTORIA. 


than for battle—almost long for yon more than for victory 
for onr Italy. 

“ This is Brescia, which my father said he loved better 
than his wife. 

“ General Paolo Ammiani is buried here. I was at his 
tombstone this morning. I wish yon had known him. 

“ Yon remember, we talked of his fencing with me daily. 
‘ I love the fathers who do that.^ Yon said it. He will love 
yon. Death is the shadow—not life. I went to his tomb. 
It was more to think of Brescia than of him. Ashes are 
only ashes; tombs are poor places. My sonl is the power. 

“ If I saw the Monte Viso this morning, I saw right over 
yonr head when yon were sleeping. 

“ Farewell to journalism—I hope, for ever. I jump at 
shaking off the journalistic phraseology Agostino laughs at. 
Yet I was right in printing my ‘ young nonsense.’ I did 
hold the truth, and that was felt, though my vehicle for 
delivering it was rubbish. 

“ In two days Corte promises to sing his song, ‘ Avanti.’ 
I am at his left hand. Venice, the passes of the Adige, the 
Adda, the Oglio are ours. The room is locked; we have 
only to exterminate the reptiles inside it. Romara, D’Arci, 
Carnischi march to hold the doors. Corte will push lower; 
and if I can get him to enter the plains and join the main 
army I shall rejoice.” 

The letter concluded with a postscript that half an Italian 
regin\ent, with white coats swinging on their bayonet-points, 
had just come in. 

It reached Vittoria at a critical moment. 

Two days previously, she and Laura Piaveni had talked 
with the king. It was an unexpected honour. Countess 
d’Isorella conducted them to the palace. The lean-headed 
sovereign sat booted and spurred, his sword across his knees; 
he spoke with a peculiar sad hopefulness of the prospects of 
the campaign, making it clear that he was risking more than 
any one risked, for his stake was a crown. The few w^ords 
he uttered of Italy had a golden ring in them ; Vittoria knew 
not why they had it. He condemned the Republican spirit 
of Milan more regretfully than severely. The Republicans 
were, he said, impracticable. Beyond the desire for change, 
they knew not what they wanted. He did not state that be 
should avoid Milan in his march. On the contrary, he 


VITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER. 


327 


seemed to indicate that he was about to present himself to 
the people of Milan. “ To act against the enemy success¬ 
fully, we must act as one, under one head, with one aim.” 
He said this, adding that no heart in Italy had yearned 
more than his own for the signal to march for the Mincio 
and the Adige. 

Vittoria determined to put him to one test. She sum¬ 
moned her boldness to crave grace for Agostino Balderini to 
return to Piedmont. The petition was immediately granted. 
Alluding to the libretto of Camilla^ the king complimented 
Vittoria for her high courage on the night of the Fifteenth 
of the foregoing year. “We in Turin were prepared, though 
we had only then the pleasure of hearing of you,” he said. 

“ I strove to do my best to help. I wish to serve our 
cause now,” she replied, feeling an inexplicable new sweet¬ 
ness running in her blood. 

He asked her if she did not know that she had the power 
to move multitudes. 

“ Sire, singing appears so poor a thing in time of 
war.” 

He remarked that wine was good for soldiers, singing 
better, such a voice as hers best of all. 

For hours after the interview, Vittoria struggled with her 
deep blushes. She heard the drums of the regiments, the 
clatter of horses, the bugle-call of assembly, as so many 
confirmatory notes that it was a royal hero who was going 
forth. 

“ He stakes a crown,” she said to Laura. 

“ Tush ! it tumbles off his head if he refuses to venture 
something,” was Laura’s response. 

Vittoria reproached her for injustice. 

“Ho,” Laura said ; “ he is like a young man for whom his 
mother has made a match. And he would be very much in 
love with his bride if he were quite certain of winning her, 
or rather, if she would come a little more than half-way to 
meet him. Some young men are so composed. Genoa and 
Turin say, ‘ Go and try.’ Milan and Venice say, ‘ Come and 
have faith in us.’ My opinion is that he is quite as much 
propelled as attracted.” 

“ This is shameful,” said Vittoria. 

“ No; for I am quite willing to suspend my judgement. I 
pray that fortune may bless his arms. I do think that 




VITTORIA. 


the stir of a campaign, and a certain amount of success will 
make him in earnest.” 

“ Can yon look on his face and not see pure enthusiasm 

“ I see every feminine quality in it, my dear.” 

“ What can it be that he is wanting in ?” 

“Masculine ambition.” 

“ I am not defending him,” said Vittoria hastily. 

“ Not at all; and I am not attacking him. I can excuse 
his dread of Republicanism. I can fancy that there is reason 
for him just now to fear Republicanism worse than Austria. 
Paris and Milan are two grisly phantoms before him. These 
red spectres are born of earthquake, and are more given to 
shaking thrones than are hostile cannon-shot. Earthquakes 
are dreadfuller than common maladies to all of us. Fortune 
may help him, but he has not the look of one who commands 
her. The face is not aquiline. There’s a light over him like 
the ray of a sickly star.” 

“ For that reason!” Vittoria burst out. 

“ Oh, for that reason we pity men, assuredly, my Sandra, 
but not kings. Luckless kings are not generous men, and 
ungenerous men are mischievous kings.” 

“ But if you find him chivalrous and devoted ; if he proves 
his noble intentions, why not support him ?” 

“ Dandle a puppet, by all means,” said Laura. 

Her intellect, not her heart, was harsh to the king; and 
her heart was not mistress of her intellect in this respect, 
because she beheld riding forth at the head of Italy one 
whose spirit was too much after the pattern of her supple, 
springing, cowering, impressionable sex, alternately ardent 
and abject, chivalrous and treacherous, and not to be con¬ 
fided in firmly when standing at the head of a great cause. 

Aware that she was reading him A'ery strictly by the 
letters of his past deeds, which were not plain history to 
Vittoria, she declared that she did not countenance suspicion 
in dealing with the king, and that it would be a delight to 
her to hear of his gallant bearing on the battle-field. “ Or 
to witness it, my Sandra, if that w^ere possible;—we two! 
For, should he prove to be no General, he has the courage of 
his family.” 

Vittoria took fire at this. “What hinders our following 
the ai'my ?” 

“ The less baggage the better, my dear.” 


VITTOrjA DISOBEYS HER LOVER. 


320 


“ But the king said that my singing-1 have no right 

to think it myself.” Yittoria concluded her sentence with a 
comical intention of humility. 

“ It was a pretty compliment.” said Laura. “ You replied 
that singing is a poor thing in time of war, and I agree with 
you. We might serve as hospital nurses.” 

“ Why do we not determine ?” 

“ We are only considering possibilities.” 

“ Consider the impossibility of our remaining quiet.” 

“ Fire that goes to flame is a waste of heat, my Sandra.” 

The signora, however, was not so discreet as her speech. 
On all sides there was uproar and movement. High-born 
Italian ladies were offering their hands for any serviceable 
work. Laura and Yittoria were not alone in the desire 
which was growing to be resolution to share the hardships of 
the soldiers, to cherish and encourage them, and by seeing, 
to have the supreme joy of feeling the blows struck at the 
common enemy. 

The opera closed when the king marched. Carlo Am- 
miani’s letter was handed to Yittoria at the fall of the 
curtain on the last night. 

Three paths were open to her: either that she should obey 
her lover, or earn an immense sum of money from Antonio- 
Pericles by accepting an immediate engagement in London, 
or go to the war. To sit in submissive obedience seemed 
unreasonable ; to fly from Italy impossible. Yet the latter 
alternative appealed strongly to her sense of duty, and as it 
thereby threw her lover’s commands into the background, 
she left it to her heart to struggle with Carlo, and thought 
over the two final propositions. The idea of being apart 
from Italy while the living country streamed forth to battle 
struck her inflamed spirit like the shock of a pause in 
martial music. Laura pretended to take no part in Yit- 
toria’s decision, but when it was reached, she showed her a 
travelling-carriage stocked with lint and linen, wine in jars, 
chocolate, cases of brandy, tea, coffee, needles, thread, twine, 
^ scissof’s, knives; saying, as she displayed them, “ There, my 
dear, all my money has gone in that equipment, so you must 
pay on the road.” 

“ This doesn’t leave me a choice, then,” said Yittoria, 
joining her humour. 

“ Ah, but think over it,” Laura suggested. 



330 


VITTORIA. 


“ 1^0! not think at all,” cried Yittoria. 

“ Yon do not fear Carlo’s anger ? ” 

“ If I think, I am weak as water. Let ns go.” 

Conntess d’Isorella wrote to Carlo: “ Yonr Yittoria is 
away after the king to Pavia. They tell me she stood np in 
her carriage on the Ponte del Po—‘ Yiva il Re d’ltalia! ’— 
waving the cross of Savoy. As I have previonsly assnred 
yon, no woman is Republican. The demonstration was a 
mistake. Public characters should not let their personal 
preferences be trumpeted : a diplomatic truism ;—but I must 
add, least of all a cantatrice for a king. The famous Greek 
amateur—the prop of failing finances—is after her to arrest 
her for breach of engagement. You wished to discover an 
independent mind in a woman, my Carlo; did you not ? Ono 
would suppose her your wife—or widow. She looked a 
superb thing the last night she sang. She is not, in my 
opinion, wanting in height. If, behind all that innocence 
and candour, she has any trained artfulness, she will beat us 
all. Heaven bless your arms ! ” 

The demonstration mentioned by the countess had not 
occurred. 

Yittoria’s letter to her lover missed him. She wrote from 
Pavia, after she had taken her decisive step. 

Carlo Ammiani went into the business of the war with the 
belief that his betrothed had despised his prayer to her. 

He was under Colonel Corte, operating on the sub-Alpine 
range of hills along the line of the Chiese South-eastward. 
Here the volunteers, formed of the best blood of Milan, the 
gay and brave young men, after marching in the pride of 
their strength to hold the Alpine passes and bar Austria 
from Italy while the fight went on below, were struck by a 
sudden paralysis. They hung aloft there like an arm cleft 
from the body. Weapons, clothes, provisions, money, the 
implements of war, were withheld from them. The Pied¬ 
montese officers despatched to watch their proceedings 
laughed at them like exasperating senior scholars examining v 
the accomplishments of a lower form. It was manifest that* 
Count Medole and the Government of Milan worked every¬ 
where to conquer the people for the king before the king had 
done a stroke to conquer the Austrians for the people; 
while, in order to reduce them to the condition of Pied¬ 
montese soldiery, the fianie of their pati iotic enthusiasm was 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


331 


systematically damped, and instead of apprentices in war, 
who possessed at any rate the elementary stuff of soldiers, 
miserable dummies were drafted into the royal service. The 
Tuscans and the Romans had good reason to complain on 
behalf of their princes, as had the Venetians and the Lom¬ 
bards for the cause of their Republic. Neither Tuscans, 
Romans, Venetians, nor Lombards, were offering up their 
lives simply to obtain a change of rulers; though all Italy 
was ready to bow in allegiance to a king of proved kingly 
quality. Early in the campaign the cry of treason was 
muttered, and on all sides such became the temper of the 
Alpine volunteers, that Angelo and Rinaldo Guidascarpi 
were forced to join their cousin under Corte, by the disper¬ 
sion of their band, amounting to something more than 
eighteen hundred lighting lads, whom a Piedmontese supe¬ 
rior officer summoned peremptorily to shout for the king. 
They thundered as one voice for the Italian Republic, and 
instantly broke up and disbanded. This was the folly of 
the young: Carlo Ammiani confessed that it was no better; 
but he knew that a breath of generous confidence from the 
self-appointed champion of the national cause would have 
subdued his impatience at royalty and given heart and cheer 
to his sickening comrades. He began to frown angrily when 
he thought of Vittoria, “ Where is she now ?—where now P” 
he asked himself in the season of his most violent wrath at 
the king. Her conduct grew inseparable in his mind from 
the king’s deeds. The sufferings, the fierce irony, the very 
deaths of the men surrounding him in arms, rose up in accu¬ 
sation against the woman he loved. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR. 

THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES.-THE WHITE UMBRELLA.—THE 

DEATH OF RINALDO GUIDASCARPI. 

The king crossed the Mincio. The Marshal, threatened 
on his left flank, drew in his line from the farther Veronese 



332 


VITTOEIA. 


heights upon a narrowed battle front before Verona. Here 
they manoeuvred, and the opening successes fell to the king. 
Holding Peschiera begirt, with one sharp passage of arms 
he cleared the right bank of the Adige and stood on the 
semicircle of hills, master of the main artery into Tyrol. 

The village of Pastrengo has given its name to the day. 
It was a day of intense heat coming after heavy rains. The 
arid soil steamed ; the white powder-smoke curled in long 
horizontal columns across the hazy ring of the fight. Seen 
from a distance it was like a huge downy ball, kicked this 
way and that between the cypresses by invisible giants. A 
pair of eager-eyed women gazing on a battlefield for the first 
time could but ask themselves in bewilderment whether the 
fate of countries were verily settled in such a fashion. Far 
in the rear, Vittoria and Laura heard the cannon-shots; a 
sullen dull sound, as of a mallet striking upon rotten timber. 
They drove at speed. The great thumps became varied by 
musketry volleys, that were like blocks of rock-boulder 
tumbled in the roll of a mountain torrent. These, then, 
were the voices of Italy and Austria speaking the devilish 
tongue of the final alternative. Cannon, rockets, musketry, 
and now the run of drums, now the ring of bugles, now the 
tramp of horses, and the field was like a landslip. A joyful 
bright black death-wine seemed to pour from the bugles all 
about. The women strained their senses to hear and see ; 
they could realize nothing of a reality so absolute; their 
feelings were shattered, and crowded over them in patches ; 

•—horror, glory, panic, hope, shifted lights within their 
bosoms. The fascination and repulsion of the image of 
Force divided them. They feared; they were prostrate; 
they sprang in praise. The image of Force was god and 
devil to their souls. They strove to understand why the 
field was marked with blocks of men who made a plume 
of vapour here, and hurried thither. The action of theii 
intellects resolved to a blank marvel at seeing an imminent 
thing—an interrogation to almighty heaven—treated with 
method, not with fury streaming forward. Cleave the 
opposing ranks ! Cry to God for fire ! Cut them through ! 
They had come to see the Song of Deborah performed 
before their eyes, and they witnessed only a battle. Blocks 
of infantry gathered densely, thinned to a line, wheeled in 
column, marched: blocks of cavalry changed posts : artillery 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 333 

belloAved from one spot and quickly selected another. 
Infantry advanced in the wake of tiny smoke-puifs, halted, 
advanced ag-ain, rattled files of shots,' became struck into 
knots, faced half about as from a blow of the back of a hand, 
retired orderly. Cavalry curved like a flickering scimetar in 
their rear; artillery plodded to its further station. Innumer¬ 
able tiny smoke-puffs then preceded a fresh advance of 
infantry. The enemy were on the hills and looked mightier, 
for they were revealed among red flashes of their guns, and 
stood partly visible above clouds of hostile smoke and 
through clouds of their own, which grasped viscously by the 
skirts of the hills. Yet it seemed a strife of insects, until, 
one by one, soldiers who had gone into yonder white pit for 
the bloody kiss of death, and had got it on their faces, were 
borne by. Vittoria and Laura knelt in this horrid stream 
of mortal anguish to give succour from their stores in the 
carriage. Their natural emotions were distraught. They 
welcomed the sight of suffering thankfully, for the poor 
blotted faces were so glad at sight of them. Torture was 
their key to the reading of the battle. They gazed on the 
field no longer, but let the roaring Avave of combat wash up 
to them Avhat it would. 

The hill behind Pastrengo was twice stormed. When the 
bluecoats first fell back, a fine charge of Piedmontese horse 
cleared the slopes for a second effort, and they went up and 
on, driving the enemy from hill to hill. The Adige was 
crossed by the Austrians under cover of Tyrolese rifle-shots. 

Then, with Beppo at their heels, bearing water, wine, and 
brandy, the Avomen Avalked in the paths of carnage, and saw 
the many faces of death. Laura whispered strangely, “ How 
light-hearted they look!” The wounded called their com¬ 
forters sweet names. Some smoked and some sang, some 
groaned; all were quick to drink. Their jokes at the dead 
were universal. They twisted their bodies painfully to stick 
a cigar between dead lips, and besprinkle them Avith the last 
drops of liquor in their cups, laughing a benediction. These 
scenes put griev'ous chains on Vittoria’s spirit, but Laura 
evidently was not the heavier for them. Glorious Verona 
shone under the sunset as their own to come; Peschiera, on 
the blue lake, Avas in the holloAV of their hands. “ Prizes 
worth any quantity of blood,” said Laura. Vittoria con¬ 
fessed that she had seen enough of blood, and her aspect 


334 


VITTORIA. 


provoked Lanra to utter, For God’s sake, think of some¬ 
thing miserable;—cry, if you can !” 

Vittoria’s under lip dropped sickly with the question, 
“Why?” 

Laura stated the physical necessity with Italian naivete. 

“If I can,” said Vittoria, and blinked to get a tear; but 
laughter helped as well to relieve her, and it came on their 
return to the carriage. They found the spy Lmgi sitting 
beside the driver. He informed them that Antonio-Pericles 
had been in the track of the army ever since their flight from 
Turin; daily hurrying otf with whip of horses at the sound 
of cannon-shot, and gradually stealing back to the extreme 
rear. This day he had flown from Oliosi to Cavriani, and 
was, perhaps, retracing his way already as before, on fearful 
toe-tips. Luigi acted the caution of one who stepped blind¬ 
folded across hot iron plates. Yittoria, without a spark of 
interest, asked why the Signor Antonio should be following 
the army. 

“ Why, it’s to find you, signorina.” 

Luigi’s comical emphasis conjured up in a jumbled picture 
the devotion, the fury, the zeal, the terror of Antonio- 
Pericles—a mixture of demoniacal energy and ludicrous 
trepidation. She imagined his long figure, fantastical as a- 
shadow, off at huge strides, and back, with eyes sliding 
swiftly to the temples, and his odd serpent’s head raised to 
peer across the plains, and occasionally to exclaim to the 
reasonable heavens in anger at men and loathinor of her. 
She laughed ungovernably. Luigi exclaimed that, albeit 
in disgrace with the signor Antonio, he had been sent for to 
serve him afresh, and had now been sent forward to entreat 
the gracious signorina to grant her sincerest friend and 
adorer an intervievv. She laughed at Pericles','but in truth 
she almost loved the man for his worship of her Art, and 
representation of her dear peaceful practice of it. 

The interview between them took place at Oliosi. There, 
also, she met Geoi-giana Ford, the half-sister of Merthyr 
Powys, who told her that Merthyr and Augustus Gambier 
were in the ranks of a volunteer contingent in the king’s 
army, and might have been present at Pastrengo. Georgiana 
held aloof from battle-fields, her business being simply to 
serve as Merthyr’s nurse in case of wounds, or to see the last 
of him in case of death. She appt ared to have no enthu- 


THE TREACHERY OP PERICLES, ETC, 


335 


eiasm. She seconded strongly the vehement persuasions 
addressed by Pericles to Vittoria. Her disapproval of the 
presence of her sex on fields of battle was precise. Pericles 
had followed the army to give Vittoria one last chance, he 
said, and drag her away from this sick country, as he called 
it, pointing at the dusty land from the windows of the inn. 
On first seeing her he gasped like one who has recovered a 
lost thing. To Laura he was a fool; but Vittoria enjoyed 
his wildest outbursts, and her half-sincere humility encou¬ 
raged him to think that he had captured her at last. He 
enlarged on the perils surrounding her voice in dusty bel¬ 
lowing Lombardy, and on the ardour of his friendship in 
exposing himself to perils as tremendous, that he might 
rescue her. While speaking he pricked a lively ear for the 
noise of guns, hearing a gun in everything, and jumping to 
the window with horrid imprecations. His carriage was 
horsed at the doors below. Let the horses die, he said ; let 
the coachman have sun-stroke. Let hundreds perish, if 
Vittoria would only start in an hour—in two—to-night—to¬ 
morrow. 

“ Because, do you see,”—he turned to Laura and Geor- 
giana, submitting to the vexatious necessity of seeming 
reasonable to these creatures,—“ she is a casket for one 
pearl. It is only one, but it is one, mon Dieu ! and inscru¬ 
table heaven, mesdames, has made the holder of it mad. Her 
voice has but a sole skin; it is not like a body; it bleeds to 
death at a scratch. A spot on the pearl, and it is perished 
—pfoof! Ah, cruel thing 1 impious, I say. I have watched, 
I have reared her. Speak to me of mothers ! I have 
cherished her for her splendid destiny—to see it go down, 
heels up, among quarrels of boobies ! Yes ; we have war in 
Italy. Fight"! Fight in this beautiful climate that you 
may be dominated by a blue coat, not by a white coat. We 
are an intelligent race ; we are a civilized people; we will 
fight for that. What has a voice of the very heavens to do 
with your fighting ? I heard it first in England, in a fir- 
wood, in a month of Spring, at night-time, fifteen miles and 
a quarter from the city of London—oh, city of peace! 
Sandra—you will come there. I give you thousands addi¬ 
tional to the sum stipulated. You have no lival. Sandra 
Belloni! no rival, I say ”—he invoked her in English,— 
“ and you here—you, to be a draggle-tail vivandiere wiz a 


336 


VITTORIA. 


brandy-bottle at yonr hips and a reputation going like ze 
brandy. Ah ! pardon, mesdames ; but did mankind ever see 
a frenzy like this girl’s ? Speak, Sandra. I could cry it 
like Miohiella to Camilla—Speak !” 

Vittoria compelled him to despatch his horses to stables. 
He had relays of horses at war-prices between Castiglione 
and Pavia, and a retinue of servants; nor did he hesitate to 
inform the ladies that, before entrusting his person to the 
hazards of war, he had taken care to be provided with safe- 
conduct passes for both armies, as befitted a prudent man of 
peace—“ or sense ; it is one, mesdames.” 

Notwithstanding his terror at the guns, and disgust at 
the soldiery and the bad fare at the inn, Yittoria’s presence 
kept him lingering in this wretched place, though he cried 
continually, “ I shall have heart-disease.” He believed at 
first that he should subdue her ; then it became his intention 
to carry her off. 

It was to see Merthyr that she remained. Merthyr came 
there the day after the engagement at Santa Lucia. They 
had not met since the days at Meran. He was bronzed, and 
keen with strife, and looked young, but spoke not over-hope- 
fully. He scolded her for wishing to taste battle, and com¬ 
pared her to a bad swimmer on deep shores. Pericles 
bounded with delight to hear him, and said he had not sup¬ 
posed there was so much sense in Powys. Merthyr confessed 
that the Austrians had as good as beaten them at Santa 
Lucia. The tactical combinations of the Piedmontese were 
wretched. Pie was enamoured of the gallantry of the Duke 
of Savoy, who had saved the right wing of the army from 
rout while covering the backward movement. Why there 
had been any fight at all at Santa Lucia, where nothing was 
to be gained, much to be lost, he was incapable of telling ; 
but attributed it to an antique chivalry on the part of the 
king, that had prompted the hero to a trial of strength, a 
bout of blood-letting. 

“ You do think he is a hero ?” said Yittoria. 

“ He is ; and he will march to Yenice.” 

“And open the opera at Yenice,” Pericles sneered. 
“ Powys, mon cher, cure her of this beastly dream. It is a 
scandal to you to want a woman’s help. You were defeated 
at Santa Lucia. I say bravo to anything that brings you to 
reason. Bravo ! You hear me.” 


337 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 

The engagement at Santa Lucia was designed by the king 
to serve as an instigating signal for the Veronese to rise in 
revolt; and this was the secret of Charles Albert’s stultify¬ 
ing manoeuvres between Peschiera and Mantua. Instead of 
matching his military skill against the wary old Marshal’s, 
he was offering incentives to conspiracy. Distrusting the 
revolution, which was a force behind him, he placed such 
reliance on its efforts in his front as to make it the pivot of 
his actions. 

“ The volunteers Horth-east of Vicenza are doing the real 
work for us, I believe,” said Merthyr; audit seemed so then, 
as it might have been indeed, had they not been left almost 
entirely to themselves to do it. 

These tidings of a fight lost set Laura and Vittoria quiver¬ 
ing with nervous irritation. They had been on the field of 
Pastrengo, and it was won. They had been absent from 
Santa Lucia. What was the deduction ? Not such as reason 
would have made for them ; but they w'ere at the mercy of 
the currents of the blood. “ Let us go on,” said Laura. 
Merthyr refused to convoy them. Pericles drove with him 
an hour on the road, and returned in ^lee, to find Vittoria 
and Laura seated in their carriage, and Luigi scuffling with 
BeiDpo. 

“ Padrone, see how I assist you,” cried Luigi. 

Upon this Beppo instantly made a swan’s neck of his body 
and trumpeted : “ A sally from the fortress for forage.” 

“ Whip ! whip ! ” Pericles shouted to his coachman, and 
the two carriages parted company at the top of their speed. 

Pericles fell a victim to a regiment of bersaglieri that 
wanted horses, and unceremoniously stopped his pair and 
took possession of them on the route for Peschiera. Pie was 
left in a stranded carriage between a dusty ditch and a mul¬ 
berry bough. Vittoria and Laura were not much luckier. 
Phiey were met by a band of deserters, who made no claim 
upon the horses, but stood for drink, and having therewith 
fortified their fine opinion of themselves, petitioned for money. 
A kiss was their next demand. Money and good humour 
saved the women from indignity. The band of rascals went 
off with a ‘ Viva I’ltalia.’ Such scum is upon every popular 
rising, as Vittoria had to learn. Days of rain and an incom¬ 
prehensible inactivity of the royal army kept her at a 
miserable inn, where the walls were bare, the cock had crowed 


338 


VITTORIA. 


his last. The guns of Peschiera seemed to roam over the 
plain like an echo unwillingly aroused that seeks a hollow for 
its further sleep. Laura sat pondering for hours, harsh in 
manner, as if she hated her. “ I think,” she said once, “that 
women are those persons who have done evil in another 
world.” The “ why ? ” from Vittoria was uttered simply to 
awaken friendly talk, but Laura relapsed into her gloom. 
A village priest, a sleek gentle creature, who shook his head 
to earth when he hoped, and filled his nostrils with snufi 
when he desponded, gave them occasional companionship 
under the title of consolation. He wished the Austrians to 
be beaten, remarking, however, that they were good Catholics, 
most fervent Catholics. As the Lord decided, so it would 
end ! “ Oh, delicious creed ! ” Laura broke out: “ Oh, dear 

and sweet doctrine! that results and developments in a 
wmrld where there is more evil than good are approved by 
heaven.” She twisted the mild man in supple steel of her 
irony so tenderly that Vittoria marvelled to hear her speak 
of him in abhorrence when they quitted the village. “Not 
to be born a woman, and voluntarily to be a woman * ” ejacu 
lated Laura. “ How many, how many are we to deduct from 
the male population of Italy ? Cross in hand, he should be 
at the head of our arms, not whimpering in a corner for white 
bread. Wretch ! he makes the marrow in my bones rage at 
him. He chronicled a pig that squeaked.” 

Why had she been so gentle with him ? 

“ Because, my dear, when I loathe a thing I never care to 
exhaust my detestation before I can strike it,” said the true 
Italian. 

They wmre on the field of Goito ; it was won. It was Avon 
against odds. At Pastrengo they witnessed an encounter ; this 
was a battle. Vittoria perceived that there was the difference 
between a symphony and a lyric song. The blessedness of the 
sensation that death can be light and easy dispossessed her of 
the meaner compassion, half made up of cowardice, which she 
had been nearly borne doAAm by on the field of Pastrengo. 
At an angle on a height off the left wing of the royal army 
the face of the battle Avas plain to her : the movements of the 
troops were clear as strokes on a slate. Laura flung her life 
into her eyes, and knelt and watched, Avithout summing one 
sole thing from what her senses received. 

Vittoria said, “ We are too far aA\^ay to understand it.” 


THE TREACHERY OP PERICLES, ETC. 


339 


“ No,” said Laura, “ we are too far awaj io feel it.” 

The savage soul of the woman was robbed of its share of 
tragic emotion by having to hold so far aloof. Flashes of 
guns were but flashes of guns up there where she knelt. She 
thirsted to read the things written by them; thirsted for 
their mystic terrors, somewhat as souls of great prophets 
have craved for the full revelation of those fitful underlights 
which inspired their mouths. 

Charles Albert’s star was at its highest when the Piedmon¬ 
tese drums beat for an advance of the whole line at Goito. 

Laura stood up, white as furnace-fire. “Women can do 
some good by praying,” she said. She believed that she had 
been praying. That Avas her part in the victory. 

Rain fell as from the forehead of thunder. From black 
eve to black dawn the women were among dead and dying 
men, where the lanterns trailed a slow flame across faces 
that took the light and let it go. They returned to their 
carriage exhausted. The ways AA'ere almost impassable for 
carriage-wheels. While they were toiling on and exchang¬ 
ing their drenched clothes, Vittoria heard Merthyr’s voice 
speaking to Beppo on the box. He was saying that Captain 
Gambier lay badly wounded ; brandy was wanted for him. 
She flung a cloak over Laura, and handed out the flask with 
a naked arm. It Avas not till she saw him again that she 
remembered or even felt that he had kissed the arm. A 
spot of sweet fire burned on it just where the soft fulness of 
a woman’s arm slopes to the bend. He chid her for being 
on the field and rejoiced in a breath, for the carriage and 
its contents helped to rescue his wounded brother in arms 
from probable death. Gambier, wounded in thigh and ankle 
by rifle-shot, was placed in the carriage. His clothes were 
saturated with the soil of Goito; but wounded and wet, he 
smiled gaily, and talked sweet boyish English. Merthyr 
gave the driver directions to wind along up the Mincio. 
“Georgiana will be at the nearest village—she has an 
instinct for battle-fields, or keeps spies in her pay,” he said. 
“ Tell her I am safe. We march to cut them (the enemy) 
off from Verona, and I can’t leaA-e. The game is in our 
hands. We shall give you Venice.” 

Georgiana was found at the nearest village. Gambler’s 
wounds had been dressed by an army-surgeon. She looked 
at the dressing, and said that it would do for six hours. 

z 2 


340 


VITTORTA. 


This singular person had fully qualified herself to attend 
on a soldier-brother. She had studied medicine for that 
purpose, and she had served as nurse in a London hospital. 
Her nerves were completely under control. She could sit 
in attendance by a sick-bed for hours, hearing distant cannon, 
and the brawl of soldiery and vagabonds in the street, with¬ 
out a change of countenance. Her dress was plain black 
from throat to heel, with a skull cap of white, like a 
Moravian sister. Yittoria reverenced her; but Georgiana’s 
manner in return was cold aversion, so much more scornful 
than disdain that it offended Laura, who promptly put 
her finger on the blot in the fair character with the word 
‘Jealousy;’ but a single word is too broad a mark to be 
exactly true. “ She is a perfect example of your English,” 
Laura said. “ Brave, good, devoted, admirable—ice to the 
heart. The judge of others, of course. I always respected 
her; I never liked her; and I should be afraid of a com¬ 
parison with her. Her management of the household of 
this inn is extraordinary.” 

Georgiana condescended to advise Yittoria once more not 
to dangle after armies. 

“ I wish to wait here to assist you in nursing our friend,” 
said Yittoria. 

Georgiana replied that her strength was unlikely to fail. 

After two days of incessant rain, sunshine blazed over 
the watery Mantuan flats. Laura drove with Beppo to see 
whether the array was in motion, for they were distracted 
by rumours. Yittoria clung to her wounded friend, whose 
pleasure was the hearing her speak. She expected Laura’s 
return by set of sun. After dark a messenger came to her, 
saying that the signora had sent a carriage to fetch her to 
Yaleggio. Her immediate supposition was that Merthyr 
might have fallen. She found Luigi at the carriage-door, 
and listened to his mysterious directions and remarks that 
not a minute must be lost, without suspicion. He said that 
the signora Avas in great trouble, very anxious to see the 
signorina instantly; there was but a distance of five miles 
to traverse. 

She thought it strange that the carriage should be so 
luxuriously fitted with lights and silken pilloYS, but her 
ideas were all of Merthyr, until she by chance discovered a 
packet marked ‘ chocolate,^ which told her at once that she 


341 


THE TREACHERY OP PERICLES, ETC. 

was entrapped by Antonio-Pericles. Luigi would not answer 
her cry to him. After some fruitless tremblings of wrath, 
she lay back relieved by the feeling that Merthyr was safe, 
come what might come to herself. Things could lead to 
nothing but an altercation with Pericles, and for this scene 
she prepared her mind. The carriage stopped while she 
was dozing. Too proud to suj^plicate in the darkness, she 
left it to the horses to bear her on, reserving her energies 
for the morning’s interview, and saying, “ The farther he 
takes me the angrier I shall be.” She dreamed of her 
anger while asleep, but awakened so frequently during the 
night that morning was at her eyelids before they divided. 
To her amazement she saw the carriage surrounded by 
Austrian troopers. Pericles was spreading cigars among 
them, and addressing them affably. The carriage was on a 
good road, between irrigated flats, that flashed a lively green 
and bright steel blue ^or miles away. She drew down the 
blinds to cry at leisure; her wings were clipped, and she 
lost heart. Pericles came round to her when the carriage 
had drawn up at an inn. He was egregiously polite, but 
modestly kept back any expressions of triumph. A body 
of Austrians, cavalry and infantry, were breaking camp. 
Pericles accorded hfer an hour of rest. She perceived that 
he was anticipating an outbreak of the anger she had nursed 
overnight, and baffled him so far by keeping dumb. Luigi 
was sent up to her to announce the expiration of her hour of 
grace. “ Ah, Luigi !” she said. “ Signorina, only wait, and 
see how Luigi can serve two,” he whispered, writhing under 
the reproachfulness of her eyes. At the carriage door she 
asked Pericles whither he was taking her. “Hot to Turin, 
not to London, Sandra Belloni!” he replied ; “ not to a place 
where you are wet all night long, to wheeze for ever after it. 
Go in.” She entered the carriage quickly, to escape from 
staring officers, wdiose laughter rang in her ears and humbled 
her bitterly; she felt herself bringing dishonour on her 
lover. The carriage continued in the track of the Austrians. 
Pericles was audibly careful to avoid the border regiments. 
He showered cigars as he passed; now and then he exhibited 
a paper; and on one occasion he brought a General officer to 
the carriage-door, opened it and pointed in. A white-hel- 
nieted dragoon rode on each side of the carriage for the 
remainder of the day. The delight of the supposition that 


342 


VITTOKIA. 


these Austrians were retreating before the invincible arms 
of King Carlo Alberto kept her cheerful; but she heard no 
guns in the rear. A blocking of artillery and waggons com¬ 
pelled a halt, and then Pericles came and faced her. He 
looked profoundly ashamed of himself, ready as he was for 
an animated defence of his proceedings. 

“ Where are you taking me, sir ?” she said in English. 

“ Sandra, will you be a good child ? It is anywhere you 
.please, if you will promise—;—” 

“ I will promise nothing.” 

“ Zen, I lock you up in Verona.’* 

“ In Verona!” 

“ Sandra, will you promise to me ?’* 

“ I will promise nothing.” 

“Zen I lock you up in Verona. It is settled. No more 
of it. I come to say, we shall not reach a yillage. I am 
sorry. We have soldiers for a guard. You draw out a 
board and lodge in your carriage as in a bed. Biscuits, 
potted meats, prunes, bon-bons, chocolate, wine—you shall 
find all at your right hand and your left. I am desolate in 
offending you. Sandra, if you will promise-” 

“ I will promise—this is what I will promise,” said 
Vittoria. 

Pericles thrust his ear forward, and withdrew it as if it 
had been slapped. 

She promised to run from him at the first opportunity, to 
despise him ever after, and never to sing again in his hear¬ 
ing. With the darkness Luigi appeared to light her lamp; 
he mouthed perpetually, “ To-morrow, to-morrow.” The 
watch-fires of Austrians encamped in the fields encircled 
her; and moving up and down, the cigar of Antonio-Pericles 
was visible. He had not eaten or drunk, and he was out 
there sleepless ; he walked conquering his fears in the thick 
of war troubles : all for her sake. She watched critically to 
see whether the cigar-light was puffed in fretfulness. It 
bui’ued steadily; and the thought of Pericles supporting 
patience quite overcame her. In a fit of humour that was 
almost tears, she called to him and begged him to take a 
place in the carriage and have food. “ If it is your plea¬ 
sure,” he said; and threw off his cloak. The wine comforted 
him. Thereupon he commenced a series of strange gesticu¬ 
lations, and ended by blinking at the window, saying, “No, 



THE TEEACHEEY OP PEEICLES, ETC. 


343 


no; it is impossible to explain. I have no voice; I am not 
gifted. It is,” he tapped at his chest, “ it is here. It is 
imprisoned in me.” 

“ What ?” said Vittoria, to encourage him. 

“ It can never be explained, my child. Am I not respect¬ 
ful to you ? Am I not worshipful to you ? But, no! it can 
never be explained. Some do call me mad. I know it; 1 
am laughed at. Oh! do I not know zat ? Perfectly well. 
My ancestors adored Goddesses. I discover ze voice of a 
Goddess : I adore it. So you call me mad; it is to me— 
what you call me—juste ze same. I am possessed wiz pas¬ 
sion for her voice. So it will be till I go to ashes. It is to 
me ze one zsing divine in a pig, a porpoise world. It is to 
me—I talk ! It is unutterable—impossible to tell.” 

“ But I understand it; I know you must feel it,” said 
Vittoria. 

“ But you hate me, Sandra. You hate your Pericles.” 

“No, I do not; you are my good friend, my good 
Pericles.” 

“ I am your good Pericles ? So you obey me 

“ In what ?” 

“ You come to London ?” 

“ I shall not.” 

“ You come to Turin ?” 

“ I cannot promise.” 

“ To Milan ?” 

“ No ; not yet.” 

“ Ungrateful little beast! minx ! temptress! You seduce 
me into your carriage to feed me, to fill me, for to coax me,” 
cried Pericles. 

“ Am I the person to have abuse poured on me Vittoria 
rejoined, and she frowned. “ Might I not have called you a 
wretched whimsical money-machine, without the comprehen¬ 
sion of a human feeling ? You are doing me a great wrong 
—to win my submission, as I see, and it half amuses me ; 
but the pretence of an attempt to carry me oif from my 
friends is an offence that I should take certain care to punish 
in another. I do not give you any promise, because the first 
promise of all—the promise to keep one—is not in my power. 
Shut your eyes and sleep where you are, and in the morning 
think better of your conduct!” 

“ Of my conduct, mademoiselle 1” Pericles retained this 


344 


VITTOPJA. 


sentence in his head till the conclusion of her animated 
speech,—“of my conduct I judge better zan to accept of 
such a privilege as you graciously offer to me and he 
retired with a sour grin, very much subdued by her unex¬ 
pected capacity for expression. The bugles of the Austrians 
■were soon ringing. There was a trifle of a romantic flavour 
in the notes which Yittoria tried not to feel ; the smart 
iteration of them all about her rubbed it off, but she was 
reduced to repeat them, and take them in various keys. 
This was her theme for the day. They were in the midst of 
mulberries, out of sight of the army; green mulberries, and 
the green and the bronze young vine-leaf. It was a delicious 
day, but she began to fear that she was approaching Yerona, 
and that Pericles was acting seriously. The bronze young 
vine-leaf seemed to her like some warrior’s face, as it would 
look when beaten by wmather, burned by the sun. They 
came now to inns which had been visited by both armies. 
Luigi established communication with the innkeepers before 
the latter had stated the names of villages to Pericles, who 
stood map in hand, believing himself at last to be no more 
conscious of his position than an atom in a whirl of dust. 
Yittoria still refused to give him any pi’omise, and finally, 
on a solitary stretch of the road, he appealed to her mercy. 
She was the mistress of the carriage, he said; he had never 
meant to imprison her in Yerona; his behaviour was simply 
dictated by his adoration:—alas ! This was true or not 
true, but it was certain that the ways were confounded to 
them. Luigi, despatched to reconnoitre from a neighbouring 
eminence, reported a Piedmontese encampment far ahead, 
and a walking tent that was coming on their route. The 
walking tent was an enormous white umbrella. Pericles 
advanced to meet it; after an interchange of opening forma¬ 
lities, he turned about and clapped hands. The umbrella 
was folded. Yittoria recognized the last man she would 
then have thought of meeting; he seemed to have jumped 
out of an ambush from Meran in Tyrol :—it was Wilfrid. 
Their greeting was disturbed by the rushing up of half-a- 
dozen troopers. The men claimed him as an Austrian spy. 
With difficulty Yittoria obtained leave to drive him, on to 
their eommanding officer. It appeared that the wdiite 
umbrella was notorious for having been seen on previous 
occasions threading the Piedmontese lines into and out of 


THE TREACHERY OP PERICLES, ETC. 


345 


Peschiera. These very troopers swore to it; hut they could 
not swear to Wilfrid, and white umbrellas were not absolutely 
uucommon. Vittoria declared that Wilfrid was an old Eng¬ 
lish friend; Pericles vowed that Wilfrid was one of their 
party. The prisoner was clearly an Englishman. As it 
chanced, the officer before whom Wilfrid was taken had 
heard Yittoria sing on the great night at La Scala. “ Sig- 
norina, your word should pass the Austrian Field-Marshal 
himself,” he said, and merely requested Wilfrid to state on 
his word of honour that he was not in the Austrian service, 
to which Wilfrid unhesitatingly replied, “ I am not.” 

Permission was then accorded to him to proceed in the 
carriage. 

Vittoria held her hand to Wilfrid. He took the fingers 
and bowed over them. 

He was perfectly self-possessed, and cool even under her 
eyes. Like a pedlar he carried a pack on his back, which 
wms his life; for his business was a combination of scout 
and spy. 

“You have saved me from a ditch to-day,” he said; 
“ every fellow has some sort of love for his life, and I must 
thank you for the odd-luck of your coming by. I knew you 
w^ere on this ground somewhere. If the rascals had searched 
me, I should not have come off so well. I did not speak 
falsely to that officer; I am not in the Austrian service. I 
am a volunteer spy. I aru an unpaid soldier. I am the dog 
of the army—fetching and carrying for a smile and a pat on 
the head. I am ruined, and I am working my way up as 
best I can. My uncle disowns pae, It is to General Schoneck 
that I owe this chance of re-establishing myself. I followed 
the army out of Milan. I was at Melegnano, at Pastrengo, 
at Santa Lucia, If I get nothing fop it, the Lenkensteins at 
least shall not say that I abandoned the flag in adversity. 
I am bound for Pivoli. The fortress (Peschiera) has just 
surrendered. The Marshal is stealing round to make a dash 
on Vicenza.” So far he spoke like one apart from her, but 
a flush crossed his forehead. “ I have not followed you. I 
have obeyed your brief directions. I saw this carriage 
yesterday in the ranks of our troops. I saw Pericles. I 
guessed who might be inside it. I let it pass me. Could I 
do more ?” 

“iS^’ot if you wanted to punish me,” said Vittoria. 


346 


VITTORIA. 


She was afflicted by bis refraining from reproaches in his 
sunken state. 

Their talk bordered the old life which they had known, 
like a rivulet coming to falls where it threatens to be a tor¬ 
rent and a flood; like flame bubbling the wax of a seal. She 
was surprised to find herself expecting tenderness from him : 
and, startled by the languor in her veins, she conceived a 
contempt for her sex and her own weak nature. To mask 
that, an excessive outward coldness was assumed. “You 
can serve as a spy, Wilfrid !” 

The answer was ready : “ Having twice served as a traitor, 
I need not be particular. It is what my uncle and the 
Lenkensteins call me. I do my best to work my way up 
again. Despise me for it, if you please.” 

On the contrary, she had never respected him so much. 
She got herself into opposition to him by provoking him to 
speak with pride of his army ; but the opposition was artifi¬ 
cial, and she called to Carlo Ammiani in heart. “ I will 
leave these places, cover up my head, and crouch till the 
struggle is decided.” 

The difficulty was now to be happily rid of Wilfrid by 
leaving him in safety. Piedmontese horse scoured the neigh¬ 
bourhood, and any mischance that might befall him she 
ti-aced to her hand. She dreaded at every instant to hear 
him speak of his love for her; yet how sweet it would have 
been to hear it,—to hear him speak of passionate love ; to 
shape it in deep music; to hear one crave for what she gave 
to another! “ I am sinking; I am growing degraded,” she 
thought. But there was no other way for her to .quicken 
her imagination of her distant and offended lover. The 
sights on the plains were strange contrasts to these con¬ 
flicting inner emotions : she seemed to be living in two 
divided worlds. 

Pericles declared anew that she was mistress of the car¬ 
riage. She issued orders : “ The nearest point to Bivoli, and 
then to Brescia.” 

Pericles broke into shouts. “ She has arrived at her 
reason * Hurrah for Brescia ! I beheld you,” he confessed 
to Wilfrid,—“it was on ze right of Mincio, my friend. I 
did not know you were so true for Art, or what a hand I 
would have reached to you! Excuse me now. Let us whip 
Oil. I am ypur banker. I shall desire you not to be shot or 


THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES, ETC. 


347 


sabred. You are deserving of an effigy on a theatral grand 
stair-case!” His gratitude could no further express itself. 
In joy he ’whipped the horses on. Fools might be fighting— 
he was the conqueror. From Brescia, one leap took him in 
fancy to London. He composed mentally a letter to be for¬ 
warded immediately to a London manager, directing him to 
cause the appearance of articles in the journals on the grand 
new prima donna, whose singing had awakened the people 
of Italy. 

Another, day brought them in view of the Lago di Garda. 
The flag of Sardinia hung from the walls of Peschiera. And 
now Vittoria saw the Pastrengo hills—dear hills, that drove 
her wretched languor out of her, and made her soul and 
body one again. The horses were going at a gallop. Shots 
M^ere heard. To the left of them, somewhat in the rear, on 
higher ground, there was an encounter of a body of Aus¬ 
trians and Italians: Tyrolese riflemen and the volunteers. 
Pericles was raving. He refused to draw the reins till they 
had reached the village, where one of the horses dropped. 
From the wundows of the inn, fronting a clear space, Vittoria 
beheld a guard of Austrians surrounding two or more pri¬ 
soners. A woman sat near them with her head buried in 
her lap. Presently an officer left the door of the inn and 
spoke to the soldiers. “ That is Count Karl von Lenken- 
stein,” Wilfrid said in a whisper. Pericles had been speak¬ 
ing with Count Karl and came up to the room, saying, “We 
are to observe something; but we are safe; it is only the 
fortune of war.” W^ilfrid immediately went out to report 
himself. He was seen giving his papers, after which Count 
Karl waved his finger back to the inn, and he returned. 
Vittoria sprang to her feet at the words he uttered. Rinaldo 
Guidascarpi was one of the prisoners. The others Wilfrid 
professed not to know. The woman w^as the wife of Barto 
Rizzo. 

In the great red of sunset the Tyrolese riflemen and a 
body of Italians in Austrian fatigue uniform marched into 
the village. These formed in the space before the inn. It 
seemed as if Count Karl were declaiming an indictment. A 
voice answered, “ I am the man.” It was clear and straight 
as a voice that goes up in the night. Then a procession 
walked some paces on. The woman followed. She fell 
prostrate at the feet of Count Karl. He listened to her and 


348 


VITTORIA. 


nodded. Rinaldo Guidascarpi stood alone with bandaged 
eyes. The woman advanced to him; she put her mouth on 
his ear; there she hung. 

Vittoria heard a single shot. Rinaldo Guidascarpi lay 
stretched upon the ground, and the woman stood over him. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR. 

COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN.—THE STORY OF THE GUIDASCARPI.—• 
THE VICTORY OF THE’VOLUNTEERS. 

The smoke of a pistol-shot thinned away while there wa3 
yet silence. 

“ It is a saving of six charges of Austrian ammunition,** 
said Pericles. 

Vittoria stared at the scene, losing faith in her eyesight. 
She could in fact see no distinct thing beyond what appeared 
as an illuminated copper medallion, held at a great distance 
from her, with a dead man and a towering female figure 
stamped on it. 

The events following were like a rush of water on her 
senses. There was fighting up the street of the village, and 
a struggle in the space where Rinaldo had fallen; successive 
yellowish shots under the rising moonlight, cries from 
Italian lips, quick words of command from German in 
Italian, and one sturdy bull’s roar of a voice that called 
across the tumult to the Austro-Italian soldiery, “ Venite 
fratelli! —come, brothers, come under our banner!” She 
heard “ Rinaldo I” called. 

This was a second attack of the volunteers for the rescue 
of their captured comrades. They fought more desperately 
than on the hill outside the village: they fought with steel. 
Shot enfiladed them; yet they bore forward in a scattered 
body up to that spot where Rinaldo lay, shouting for him. 
There they turned,—they fled. 

Then there was a perfect stillness, succeeding the strife as 
quickly, Vittoria thought, as a breath yielded succeeds a 
breath taken. 



COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 349 

She accused the heavens of injustice. 

Pericles, prostrate on the floor, moaned that he was 
wounded. She said, “ Bleed to death!” 

“ It is mv soul, it is my soul is wounded for you, 
Sandra.” 

“ Dreadful craven man 1” she muttered. 

“ When my soul is shaking for your safety, Sandra Belloni 1” 
Pericles turned his ear up. “ For myself—nothing; it is for 
you, for you.” 

Assured of the cessation of arms by delicious silence he 
jumped to his feet. 

“ Ah 1 brutes that fight. It is immonde ; it is unnatural!” 

He tapped his finger on the walls for marks of shot, and 
discovered a shot-hole in the wood-work, that had passed an 
arm’s length above her head, into which he thrust his finger 
in an intense speculative meditation, shifting eyes from it to 
her, and throwing them aloft. 

He was summoned to the presence of Count Karl, with 
whom he found Captain Weisspriess, Wilfrid, and officers of 
jagers and the Italian battalion. Barto Bizzo’s wife was in 
a corner of the room. Weisspriess met him with a very 
civil greeting, and introduced him to Count Karl, who 
begged him to thank Vittoria for the aid she had afforded 
to General Schoneck’s emissary in crossing the Piedmontese 
lines. He spoke in Italian. He agreed to conduct Pericles 
to a point on the route of his march where Pericles and his 
precious prima donna—“ our very good friend,” he said, 
jovially—could escape the risk of unpleasant mishaps, and 
arrive at Trent and cities of peace by easy stages. He was 
marching for the neighbourhood of Vicenza. 

A little before dawn Vittoria came down to the carriage. 
Count Karl stood at the door to hand her in. He was young 
and handsome, with a soft flowing blonde moustache and 
pleasant eyes, a contrast to his brother Count Lenkenstein. 
He repeated his thanks to her, which Pericles had not 
delivered ; he informed her that she was by no means a 
prisoner, and was simply under the guardianship of friends 
•—“ though perhaps, signorina, you will not esteem this 
gentleman to be one of your friends.” He pointed to Weiss¬ 
priess. The captain bowed, but kept aloofl Vittoria per¬ 
ceived a singular change in him: he had become pale and 
sedate. “Poor fellow! he has had his dose,” said Count 


350 


VITTORIA. 


Karl. “ He is, I beg to assure you, one of your most 
veliement admirers.” 

A piece of her property that flushed her with recollec¬ 
tions, yet made her grateful, was presently handed to her, 
though not in the captain’s presence, by a soldier. It was 
the silver-hilted dagger, Carlo’s precious gift, of which 
Weisspriess had taken possession in the mountain-pass over 
the vale of Meran, when he fought the duel with Angelo. 
Whether intended as a peace-offering, or as a simple restitu¬ 
tion, it helped Vittoria to believe that Weisspriess was no 
longer the man he had been. 

The march was ready, but Barto Rizzo’s wife refused to 
move a foot. The officers consulted. She was brought 
before them. The soldiers swore with jesting oaths that 
she had been carefully searched for weapons, and only 
wanted a whipping. “ She must have it,” said Weisspriess. 
Vittoria entreated that she might have a place beside her in 
the carriage. “It is more than I would have asked of you; 
but if you are not afraid of her,” said Count Karl, with an 
apologetic shrug. 

Her heart beat fast when she found herself alone with the 
terrible woman. 

Till then she had never seen a tragic face. Compared 
with this tawny colourlessness, this evil brow, this shut 
mouth, Laura, even on the battle-field, looked harmless. It 
was like the face of a dead savage. The eyeballs were full 
on Vittoria, as if they dashed at an obstacle, not embraced 
an image. In proportion as they seemed to widen about 
her, Vittoria shrank. The whole woman was blood to her 
gaze. 

When she was capable of speaking, she said entreat- 

iiigly— 

“ I knew his breather.” 

Hot a sign of life was given in reply. 

Companionship with this ghost of broad daylight made 
the fluttering Tyrolese feathers at both windows a welcome 
sight. 

Precautions had been taken to bind the woman’s arms. 
Vittoria offered to loosen the cords, but she dared not touch 
her without a mark of assent. 

“ I know Angelo Guidascarpi, Rinaldo’s brother,” she 
spoke again. 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 


351 


The •u'oman’s nostrils bent inward, as when the breath we 
draw ivS keen as a sword to the heart. Vittoria was com¬ 
pelled to look away from her. 

At the midday halt Count Karl deigned to justify to her 
his intended execution of Rinaldo—the accomplice in the 
slaying of his brother Count Paul. He was evidently eager 
to obtain her good opinion of the Austrian military. “ liut 
for this miserable spirit of hatred against us,” he said, “ I 
should have espoused an Italian lady and he asked, “ Why 
not ? For that matter, in all but blood, we Lenkensteins 
are half Italian, except when Italy menaces the empire. 
Can you blame us for then drawing the sword in earnest 

He proffered his version of the death of Count Paul. She 
kept her own silent in her bosom. 

Clelia Guidascarpi, according to his statement, had first 
been slain by her brothers. Yittoria believed that Clelia 
had voluntarily submitted to death and died by her own 
hand. She was betrothed to an Italian nobleman of Bologna, 
the friend of the brothers. They had arranged the marriage ; 
she accepted the betrothal. “ She loved my brother, poor 
thing!” said Count Karl. “ She concealed it, and naturally. 
How could she take a couple of wolves into her confidence ? 
If she had told the pair of ruffians that she was plighted to 
an Austrian, they would have jquieted her at an earlier 
period. A woman ! a girl—signorina, the intolerable 
cowardice amazes me. It amazes me that you or any one 
can uphold the character of such brutes., And when she 
was dead they lured my brother to the house and slew him; 
fell upon him with daggers, stretched him at the foot of her 
coffin, and then—what then ?—ran! ran for their lives. 
One has gone to his account. We shall come across the 
other. He is among that volunteer party which attacked 
us yesterday. The body was carried off by them ; it is 
sufficient testimony that Angelo Guidascarpi is in the 
neighbourhood. I should be hunting him now but that I 
am under orders to march South-east.” 

The story, as Vittoria knew it, had a different, though 
yet a dreadful colour. 

“ I could have hanged Pffnaldo,” Count Karl said further. 
“I suppose the rascals feared I should use my right, and 
that is why they sent their mad baggage of a woman to 
spare any damage to the family pride. If I had been a man 


352 


YITtoEIA. 


to enjoy vengeance, tlie rope would have swung for him. 
In spite of provocation, I shall simply shoot the other; I 
pledge my word to it. They shall be paid in coin. I 
demand no interest.” 

Weisspriess prudently avoided her. Wilfrid held aloof. 
She sat in garden shade till the bugle sounded. Tpolese 
and Italian soldiers were gibing at her haggard companion 
when she entered the carriage. Fronting this dumb crea¬ 
ture once more, Vittoria thought of the story of the brothers. 
She felt herself reading it from the very page. The woman 
looked that evil star incarnate which Laura said they were 
born under. 

This is in brief the story of the Guidascarpi. 

They were the offspring of a Bolognese noble house, 
neither wealthy nor poor. In her early womanhood, Clelia 
was left to the care of her brothers. She declined the 
guardianship of Countess Ammiani because of her love for 
them; and the three, with their passion of hatred to the 
Austrians inherited from father and mother, schemed in 
concert to throw off the Austrian yoke, Clelia had soft 
features of no great mark ; by her colouring she was beau¬ 
tiful, being dark along the eyebrows, with dark eyes, and a 
surpassing richness of Venetian hair. Bologna and Venice 
were married in her aspect. Her brothers conceived her to 
possess such force of mind that they held no secrets from 
her. They did not know that the heart of their sister was 
struggling with an imaci’e of Power when, she uttered hatred 
of it. She was in truth a woman of a soft heart, with a 
most impressionable imagination. 

There were many suitors for the hand of Clelia Guida¬ 
scarpi, though her dowry was not the portion of a fat estate. 
Her old nurse counselled the brothers that they should con¬ 
sent to her taking a husband. They fulfilled this duty as 
one that must be done, and she became sorrowfully the 
betrothed of a nobleman of Bologna ; from which hour she 
had no cheerfulness. The brothers quitted Bologna for 
Venice, where there was the bed of a conspiracy. On their 
return they were shaken by rumours of their sister’s miscon¬ 
duct. An Austrian name was allied to hers in busy mouths. 
A lady, their distant relative, whose fame was light, had 
withdrawn her from the silent house, and made display of 
her. Since she had seen more than an Italian girl should 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 353 

see, the brothers proposed to the nobleman her betrothed to 
break the treaty; but he was of a mind to hurry on the 
marriage, and recollecting now that she was but a woman, 
the brothers fixed a day for her espousals, tenderly, without 
reproach. She had the choice of taking the vows or surren¬ 
dering her hand. Her old nurse prayed for the day of her 
espousals to come with a quicker step. One night she sur¬ 
prised Count Paul Lenkenstein at Clelia’s window. Rinaldo 
was in the garden below. He moved to the shadow’of a 
cypress, and was seen moving by the old nurse. The lover 
took the single kiss he had come for, was led through the 
chamber, and passed unchallenged into the street. Clelia 
sat between locked doors and darkened windows, feeling 
colder to the brothers she had been reared with than to all 
other men upon the earth. They sent for her after a lapse 
of hours. Her old nurse was kneeling at their feet. Rinaldo 
asked for the name of her lover. She answered with it. 
Angelo said, “ It will be better for you to die: but if you 
cannot do so easy a thing as that, prepare widow’s garments.” 
They forced her to write three words to Count Paul, calling 
him to her window at midnight. Rinaldo fetched a priest: 
Angelo laid out two swords. An hour before the midnight, 
Clelia’s old nurse raised the house with her cries. Clelia 
was stretched dead in her chamber. The brothers kissed her 
in turn, and sat, one at her head, one at her feet. At mid¬ 
night her lover stood among them. He was gravely saluted, 
and bidden to look upon the dead body. Angelo said to 
him, “ Had she lived you should have wedded her hand. 
She is gone of her own free choice, and one of us follows 
her.” With the sweat of anguish on his forehead. Count 
Paul drew sword. The window was barred; six male 
domestics of the household held high lights in the chamber; 
the priest knelt beside one corpse, awaiting the other. 

Vittoria’s imagination could not go beyond that scene, 
but she looked out on the brother of the slain youth with 
great pity, and with a strange curiosity. The example 
given by Clelia of the possible love of an Italian girl for 
the white uniform, set her thinking whether so monstrous a 
fact could ever be doubled in this world. “ Could it happen 
to me ? ” she asked herself, and smiled, as she half- 
fashioned the words on her lips, “ It is a pretty uniform.” 


354 


VITTOKIA. 


Her reverie was broken by a hiss of “ Traitress ! ** from 
the woman opposite. 

She coloured guiltily, tried to speak, and sat trembling. 
A divination of intense hatred had perhaps read the thought 
within her breast: or it was a mere outburst of hate. The 
woman’s face was like the wearing away of smoke from a 
spot whence shot has issued. Vittoria walked for the 
remainder of the day. That fearful companion oppressed 
her. She felt that one who followed armies should be cast 
in such a frame, and now desired with all her heart to 
render full obedience to Carlo, and abide in Brescia, or even 
in Milan—a city she thought of shyly. 

The march was hurried to the slopes of the Vicentino, for 
enemies were thick in this district. Pericles refused to quit 
the soldiers, though Count Karl used persuasion. The 
young nobleman said to Vittoria, “ Be on your guard when 
you meet my sister Anna. I tell you, we can be as revenge¬ 
ful as any of you: but you will exonerate me. I do my 
duty; I seek to do no more.” 

At an inn that they reached toward evening she saw the 
innkeeper shoot a little ball of paper at an Italian corporal, 
who put his foot on it and picked it up. This soldier subse¬ 
quently passed through the ranks of his comrades, gathering 
winks and grins. They were to have rested at the inn, but 
Count Karl was warned by scouts, which was sufficient to 
make Pericles bling to him in avoidance of the volunteers, of 
whom mainly he was in terror. He looked ague-stricken. 
He would not listen to her, or to reason in any shape. “ I 
am on the sea—shall I trust a boat ? I stick to a ship,” he 
said. The soldiers marched till midnight. It was arranged 
that the carriage should strike off for Schio at dawn. The 
soldiers bivouacked on the slope of one of the low undula¬ 
tions falling to the Vicentino plain. Vittoria spread her 
cloak, and lay under bare sky, not suffering the woman to 
be ejected from the carriage. Hitherto Luigi had avoided 
her. Under pretence of doubling Count Karl’s cloak as a 
pillow for her head, he whispered, “ If the signorina hears 
shots let her lie on the ground flat as a sheet.” The peace¬ 
fulness surrounding her precluded alarm. There was bril¬ 
liant moonlight, and the host of stars, all dim; and first they 
beckoned her up to come aw'ay from trouble, and then, 
through long gazing, she had the fancy that they bent and 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 355 

STvam about her, making her feel that she lay in the hollows 
of a warm hushed sea. She wished for her lover. 

Men and officers were lying at a stone’s-throw distant. 
The Tyrolese had lit a fire for cooking purposes, by wdiich 
four of them stood, and, lifting hands, sang one of their 
mountain songs, that seemed to her to spring like clear water 
into air, and fall wavering as a feather falls, or the light 
about a stone in water. It lulled her to a half-sleep, during 
which she fancied hearing a broad imitation of a cat’s-call 
from the mountains, that was answered out of the camp, and 
a talk of officers arose in connection with the response, and 
subsided. The carriage was in the shadows of the fire. In 
a little while Luigi and the driver began putting the horses 
to, and she saw Count Karl and Weisspriess go up to Luigi, 
who declared loudly that it was time. The woman inside 
was aroused. Weisspriess helped to drag her out. Luigi 
kept making much noise, and apologized for it by saying that 
he desired to awaken his master, who was stretched in a 
secure circle among the Tyrolese. Presently Yittoria beheld 
the woman’s arms thrown out free; the next minute they 
■were around the body of Weisspriess, and a shrewd cry issued 
from Count Karl. Shots rang from the outposts ; the Tyro¬ 
lese sprang to arms; “Sandi-a!” was shouted by Pericles; 
and once more she heard the Venite fratelli! of the bull’s 
voice, and a stream of volunteers dashed at the Tyrolese with 
sword and dagger and bayonet. The Austro-Italians stood 
in a crescent line—the ominous form of incipient military 
insubordination. Their officers stormed at them, and called 
for Count Karl and for Weisspriess. The latter replied like 
a man stifling, but Count Karl’s voice was silent. 

“Weisspriess! here, to me!” the captain sang out in 
Italian. 

“ Ammiani ! here, to me !” was replied. 

Yittoria struck her hands together in electrical gladness 
at her lover’s voice and name. It rang most cheerfully. 
Her home was in the conflict where her lover fought, and she 
muttered with ecstacy, “We have met! we have met!” The 
sound of the keen steel, so exciting to dream of, paralyzed 
her nerves in a way that powder, more terrible for a woman’s 
imagination, would not have done, and she could only feebly 
advance. It was spacious moonlight, but the moonlight 
appeared to have got of a brassy hue to her eyes, though the 


356 


VITTORIA. 


eparkle of the steel was white; and she felt too, and won¬ 
dered at it, that the cries and the noise went to her throat, 
as if threatening to choke her. Very soon she found herself 
standing there, watching for the issue of the strife, almost as 
dead as a weight in scales, incapable of clear vision. 

Matched against the Tyrolese alone, the volunteers had an 
equal fight in point of numbers, and the advantage of possess¬ 
ing a leader; for Count Karl was down, and Weisspriess 
was still entangled in the woman’s arms. When at last 
Wilfrid got him free, the unsupported Tyrolese were giving 
ground before Carlo Ammiani and his followers. These 
fought with stern fury, keeping close up to their enemy, 
rarely shouting. They presented something like the line of 
a classic bow, with its arrow-head; while the Tyrolese were 
huddled in groups, and clubbed at them, and fell back for 
space, and ultimately crashed upon their betraying brothers- 
in-arms, swinging rifles and flying. The Austro-Italians 
rang out a Viva for Italy, and let them fly; they w^ere swept 
from the scene. 

Vittoria heard her lover addressing his followers. Then 
he and Angelo stood over Count Karl, whom she had for¬ 
gotten. Angelo ran up to her, but gave place the moment 
Carlo came ; and Carlo drew her by the hand swiftly to an 
obscure bend of the rolling ground, and stuck his sword in 
the earth, and there put his arms round her and held her 
fast. 

“ Obey me now,’* were his first words. 

“Yes,” she answered. 

He was harsh of eye and tongue, not like the gentle youth 
she had been torn from at the door of La Scala. 

“Return; make your way to Brescia. My mother is in 
Brescia. Milan is hateful. I throw myself into Vicenza. 
Can I trust you to obey ?” 

“ Carlo, what evil have you heard of me ?” 

“ I listen to no tales.” 

“ Let me follow you to Vicenza and be your handmaid, 
my beloved.” 

“ Say that you obey.” 

“ I have said it.” 

He seemed to shut her in his heart, so closely was she 
enfolded. 

“ Since La Scala,” she murmured; and he bent his lips to 


COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN, ETC. 357 

her ear, whispering, “ not one thought of another woman ! 
and never till I die.” 

“ And I only of you, Carlo, and for you, my lover, my 
lover!” 

“ You love me absolutely ?” 

“ I belong to you.” 

“ I could be a coward and pi’ay for life to live to hear you 
say it.” 

“ I feel I breathe another life when you are away from 
me.” 

“ You belong to me ; you are my own ?” 

“ You take my voice, beloved.” 

“ And when I claim you, I am to have you 

“ Am I not in your hands ?” 

“ The very instant I make my claim you will say yes 

“ I shall not have strength for more than to nod.” 

Carlo shuddered at the delicious image of her weakness. 

“ My Sandra ! Vittoria, my soul! my bride !” 

“ O my Carlo! Do you go to Vicenza ? And did you 
know I was among these people ?” 

“You will hear everything from little Leone Rufo, who is 
wounded and accompanies you to Brescia. Speak of nothing. 
Speak my name, and look at me. I deserve two minutes of 
blessedness.” 

“ Ah, my dearest, if I am sweet to you, you might have 
many !” 

“ No ; they begin to hum a reproach at me already, for I 
must be marching. Vicenza will soon bubble on a fire, I 
suspect. Comfort my mother ; she wants a young heart at 
her elbow. If she is alone, she -feeds on every rumour; 
other women scatter in emotions what poisons her. And 
when my bride is with her, I am between them.” 

“Yes, Carlo, I will go,” said Vittoria, seeing her duty at 
last through tenderness. 

Carlo sprang from her side to meet Angelo, with whom he 
exchanged some quick words. The bugle was sounding, and 
Barto Rizzo audible. Luigi came to her, ruefully announc¬ 
ing that the volunteers had sacked the carriage—behaved 
worse than the Austrians ; and that his padrone, the Signor 
Antonio-Pericles, was off like a gossamer. Angelo induced 
her to remain on the spot where she stood till the carriage 
was seen on the Schio road, when he led her to it, saying 


358 


VITTOEIA. 


that Carlo had serious work to do. Count Karl Lenkenstein 
was lying in the carriage, supported by Wilfrid and by 
young Leone Rufo, who sat laughing, with one eye under a 
cross-bandage and an arm slung in a handkerchief. Yittoria 
desired to wait that she might see her lover once more ; but 
Angelo entreated her that she should depart, too earnestly to 
leave her in doubt of there being good reason for it and for 
her lover’s absence. He pointed to Wilfrid: “ Barto Rizzo 
captured this man ; Carlo has released him. Take him with 
you to attend on his superior officer.” She drew Angelo’s 
observation to the first morning colours over the peaks. He 
looked up, and she knew that he remembered that morning 
of their flight from the inn. Perhaps he then had the image 
of his brother in his mind, for the colours seemed to be 
plucking at his heart, and he said, “ I have lost him.” 

“ God help you, my friend !” said Yittoria, her throat 
choking. 

Angelo pointed at the insensible nobleman: “ These live. 
I do not grudge him his breath or his chances; but why 
should these men take so much killing ? Weisspriess has 
risen, as though I struck the blow of a babe. But we—one 
shot does for us! Nevertheless, signorina.” Angelo smiled 
firmly, “ I complain of nothing while we march forward.” 

He kissed his hand to her, and turned back to his troop. 
The carriage was soon under the shadows of the mountains. 


I 

CHAPTER XXXIY. 

EPISODES OF THE EEVOLT AND THE WAR. 

THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO.-THE MEETING AT ROVEREDO. 

At Schio there was no medical attendance to be obtained 
for Count Karl, and he begged so piteously to be taken on to 
Roveredo, that, on his promising to give Leone Rufo a pass, 
Yittoria decided to work her way round to Brescia by the 
Alpine route. She supposed Pericles to have gone off among 
the Tyrolese, and wished in her heart that Wilfrid had gone 
likewise, for he continued to wear that look of sad stupefac- 
tion which was the harshest reproach to her. Leone was 
unconquerably gay in spite of his wounds. He narrated the 



THE DEEDS OP BARTO RIZZO, ETC, 


359 


doings of the volunteers, with proud eulogies of Carlo Am- 
miani’s gallant leadership ; but the devices of Barto Rizzo 
appeared to have struck his imagination 'most. “ He is 
positively a cat—a great cat,” Leone said. “ He can run a 
day ; he can fast a week ; he can climb a house ; he can drop 
from a crag; and he never lets go his hold. If he says a 
thing to his wife, she goes true as a bullet to the mark. 
The two make a complete piece of artillery. We are all for 
Barto, though our captain Carlo is often enraged with him. 
But there’s no getting on without him. We have found 
that.” 

Rinaldo and Angelo Guidascarpi and Barto Rizzo had done 
many daring feats. They had first, heading about a couple 
of dozen out of a force of sixty, endeavoured to surprise the 
fortress Rocca d’Anfo in Lake Idro—an insane entei*prise 
that touched on success, and would have been an achieve¬ 
ment had all the men who followed them been made of the 
same desperate stuff. Beaten off, they escaped up the Yal 
di Ledro, and secretly entered Trent, where they hoped to 
spread revolt, but the Austrian commandant knew what a 
quantity of dry wood was in the city, and stamped his heel 
on sparks. A revolt was prepared notwithstanding the 
proclamation of imprisonment and death. Barto undertook 
to lead a troop against the Buon Consiglio barracks, while 
Angelo and Rinaldo cleared the ramparts. It chanced, 
whether from treachery or extra-vigilance was unknown, 
that the troops paid domiciliary visits an hour before the 
intended outbreak, and the three were left to accomplish 
their task alone. They remained in the city several days, 
hunted from house to house, and finally they were brought 
to bay at night on the roof of a palace where the Lenkenstein 
ladies were residing. Barto took his dagger between his 
teeth and dropped to the balcony of Lena’s chamber. The 
brothers soon after found the roof-trap opened to them, and 
Lena and Anna conducted them to the postern-door. There 
Angelo asked whom they had to thank. The terrified ladies 
gave their name ; upon hearing which, Rinaldo turned and 
said that he would pay for a charitable deed to the extent 
of his power, and would not meanly allow them to befriend 
persons who were to continue strangers to them. He gave 
the name of Guidascarpi, and relieved his brother, as well 
as himself, of a load of obligation, for the ladies raised, wild 


360 


VITTOEIA. 


screams on the instant. In falling from the walls to the 
road, Rinaldo hurt his foot. Barto lifted him on his back, 
and journeyed with him so till at the appointed place he 
met his wife, who dressed the foot, and led them out of the 
line of pursuit, herself bending under the beloved load. Her 
adoration of Rinaldo was deep as a mother’s, pure as a 
virgin’s, fiery as a saint’s. Leone Rufo dwelt on it the more 
fervidly from seeing Vittoria’s expression of astonishment. 
The woman led them to a cave in the rocks, where she had 
stored provision and sat two days expecting the signal from 
Trent. They saw numerous bands of soldiers set out along 
the valleys—merry men whom it was Barto’s pleasure to 
beguile by shouts, as a relief for his parched weariness upon 
the baking rock. Accident made it an indiscretion. A glass 
was levelled at them by a mounted officer, and they had 
quickly to be moving. Angelo knew the voice of Weiss- 
priess in the word of command to the soldiers, and the call 
to him to surrender. Weisspriess followed them across the 
mountain track, keeping at their heels, though they doubled 
and adopted all possible contrivances to shake him off. He 
was joined by Count Karl Lenkenstcin on the day when 
Carlo Ammiani encountered them, with the rear of Colonel 
Corte’s band marching for Vicenza. In the collision between 
the Austrians and the volunteers, Rinaldo was taken fight¬ 
ing upon his knee-cap. Leone cursed the disabled foot 
which had carried the hero in action, to cast him at the 
mercy of his enemies ; but recollection of that sight of 
Rinaldo fighting far ahead and alone, half-down like a 
scuttled ship, stood like a fiower in the lad’s memory. The 
volunteers devoted themselves to liberate or avenge him. It 
was then that Barto Rizzo sent his wife upon her mission. 
Leone assured Vittoria that Angelo was aware of its nature, 
and approved it—hoped that the same might be done for 
himself. He shook his head when she asked if Count 
Ammiani approved it likewise. 

“ Signorina, Count Ammiani has a grudge against Barto, 
though he can’t help making use of him. Our captain Carlo 
is too much of a mere soldier. He would have allowed 
Rinaldo to be strung up, and Barto does not owe him 
obedience in those things.” 

“ But why did this Barto Rizzo employ a woman’s hand 

“ The woman was capable. No man could have got per- 


THE DEEDS OP BAETO EIZZO, ETC. 


361 


mission to move freely among the rascal Austrians, even in 
the character of a deserter. She did, and she saved him 
from the shaine of execution. And besides, it was her 
punishment. You are astonished ? Barto Bizzo punishes 
royally. He never forgives, and he never persecutes; he 
waits for his opportunity. That woman disobeyed him once 
—once only; but once was enough. It occurred in Milan, 
I believe. She released an Austrian, or did something—I 
don’t know the story exactly—and Barto said to her, ‘ How 
you can wash out your crime and send your boy to heaven 
unspotted, with one blow.’ I saw her set out to do it. She 
was all teeth and eyes, like a frightened horse j she walked 
like a Muse in a garden.” 

Yittoria discovered that her presence among the Austrians 
had been known to Carlo. Leone alluded slightly to Barto 
Rizzo’s confirmed suspicion of her, saying that it was his 
weakness to be suspicious of women. The voluuteers, how¬ 
ever, were all in her favour, and had jeered at Barto on his 
declaring that she might, in proof of her willingness to 
serve the cause, have used her voice for the purpose of sub¬ 
jugating the wavering Austro-Italians, who wanted as much 
coaxing as women. Count Karl had been struck to earth 
by Barto Rizzo. “Hot with his boasted neatness, I imagine,” 
Leone said. ' In fact, the dagger had grazed an ivory por¬ 
trait of a fair Italian head wreathed with violets in Count 
Karl’s breast. 

Yittoria recognized the features of Yioletta d’Isorella as 
the original of the portrait. 

They arrived at Roveredo late in the evening. The 
wounded man again entreated Yittoria to remain by him till 
a messenger should bring one of his sisters from Trent. 
“ See,” she said to Leone, “ how I give grounds for suspicion 
of me ; I nurse an enemy.” 

“ Here is a case where Barto is distinctly to blame,” the 
lad replied. “ The poor fellow must want nursing, for he 
can’t smoke.” 

Anna von Lenkenstein came from Trent to her brother’s 
summons. Yittoria was by his bedside, and the sufferer had 
fallen asleep with his head upon her arm. Anna looked 
upon this scene with more hateful amazement than her dull 
eyelids could express. She beckoned imperiously for her to 
come away, but Yittoria would not allow him to be disturbed, 


362 


VITTOEIA. 


and A.nna sat and faced her. The sleep was long. The eyes 
of the two women met from time to time, and Vittoria 
thought that Barto Rizzo’s wife, though more terrible, was 
pleasanter to behold, and less brutal, than Anna. The 
moment her brother stirred, Anna repeated her imperious 
gesture, murmuring, “Away! out of my sight!” With 
great delicacy of touch she drew the arm from the pillow 
and thrust it back, and then motioning in an undisguised 
horror, said, “ Go.” Vittoria rose to go. 

“ Is it my Lena ?” came from Karl’s faint lips. 

“ It is your Anna.” 

“ I should have known,” he moaned. 

Vittoria left them. 

Some hours later, Countess Lena appeared, bringing a 
Trentino doctor. She said when she beheld Vittoria, “ Are 
you our evil genius, then ?” Vittoria felt that she must 
necessarily wear that aspect to them. 

Still greater was Lena’s amazement when she looked on 
Wilfrid. She passed him without a sign. 

Vittoria had zo submit to an interview with both sisters 
before her departure. Apart from her distress on their 
behalf, they had always seemed as very weak, flippant young 
women to her, and she could have smiled in her heart when 
Anna pointed to a day of retribution in the future. 

“ I shall not seek to have you assassinated,” Anna said; 
“ do not suppose that I mean the knife or the pistol. But 
your day will come, and I can wait for it. You murdered 
my brother Paul: you have tried to murder my brother 
Karl. I wish you to leave this place convinced of one thing: 

•—you shall be repaid for it.” 

There was no direct allusion either to Weisspriess or to 
Wilfrid. 

Lena spoke of the army. “You think our cause is ruined 
because we have insurrection ^ all sides of us : you do not 
know our army. We can flght the Hungarians with one 
hand, and you Italians with the other—with a little finger. 
On what spot have we given way ? We have to weep, it is 
true; but tears do not testify to defeat; and already I am 
inclined to pity those fools who have taken part against us. 
Some have experienced the fruits of their folly.” 

This was the nearest approach to a hint at Wilfrid’s mis¬ 
conduct. 


363 


THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO, ETC. 

Lena handed Leone’s pass to Yittoria, and drawing* out a 
little pocket almanac, said, “ You proceed to Milan, I pre¬ 
sume. I do not love your society, mademoiselle Belloni—or 
Campa: yet I do not mind making an appointment—the 
doctor says a month will set my brother on his feet again,— 
I will make an appointment to meet you in Milan or Como, 
or anywhere in your present territories, during the month of 
August. That affords time for a short siege and two pitched 
battles.” 

She appeared to be expecting a retort. 

Yittoria replied, “ I could beg one thing on my knees of 
you, Countess Lena.” 

“ And that is-?” Lena threw her head up superbly. 

“ Pardon my old friend the service he did me through 
friendship.” 

The cisters interchanged looks. Lena flushed angrily. 

Anna said, “ The person to whom you allude is here.” 

“ He is attending on your brother.” 

“ Did he help this last assassin to escape, perchance ?” 

Yittoria sickened at the cruel irony, and felt that she had 
perhaps done ill in beginning to plead for Wilfrid. 

“ He is here; let him speak for himself: but listen to 
him. Countess Lena.” 

“ A dishonourable man had better be dumb,” interposed 
Anna. 

“ Ah ! it is I who have offended you.” 

“ Is that his excuse ?” 

Yittoria kept her eyes on the fiercer sister, who now 
declined to speak. 

“ I will not excuse my own deeds ; perhaps I cannot. We 
Italians are in a hurricane; I cannot reflect. It may be 
that I do not act more thinkingly than a wild beast.” 

“ You have spoken it,” Anna exclaimed. 

“ Countess Lena, he fights in your ranks as a common 
soldier. He encounters more than a common soldier’s 
risks.” 

“ The man is brave,—we knew that,” said Anna. 

“ He is more than brave, he is devoted. He fights against 
ns, without hope of reward from you. Have I utterly 
ruined him ?” 

“I imagine that you may regard it as a fact that you 



364 


VITTORIA. 


have utterly ruined him,” said Anna, moving to break up 
the parting inverview. Lena turned to follow her. 

“ Ladies, if it is I who have hardened your hearts I am 
more guilty than I thought.” Vittoria said no more. She 
knew that she had been speaking badly, or ineffectually, by 
a haunting flatness of sound, as of an unstrung instrument, 
in her ears : she was herself unstrung and dispirited, while 
the recollection of A nna’s voice was like a sombre conquer¬ 
ing monotony on a low chord, with which she felt insuffi¬ 
cient to compete. 

Leone was waiting in the carriage to drive to the ferry 
across the Adige. There was news in Roveredo of the king’s 
advance upon Rivoli; and Leone sat trying to lift and 
straighten out his wounded arm, with grimaces of laughter 
at the pain of the effort, which resolutely refused to acknow¬ 
ledge him to be an able combatant. At the carriage door 
Wilfrid bowed once over Vittoria’s hand. 

“ You see that,” Anna remarked to her sister. 

“ I should have despised him if he had acted indifference,” 
replied Lena. 

She would have suspected him—that was what her heart 
meant; the artful show of indifference had deceived her 
once. The anger within her drew its springs much more 
fully from his refusal to respond to her affection, when she 
had in a flt of feminine weakness abased herself before him 
on the night of the Milanese revolt, than from the recollec¬ 
tion of their days together in Meran. She had nothing of 
her sister’s unforgivingness. And she was besides keenly 
curious to discover the nature of the charm Vittoria threw 
on him, and not on him solely. Vittoria left Wilfrid to 
better chances than she supposed. “ Continue fighting with 
your army,” she said, when they parted. The deeper shade 
which traversed his features told her that, if she pleased, 
her sway might still be active; but she had no emotion to 
spare for sentimental regrets. She asked herself whether a 
woman who has cast her lot in scenes of strife does not lose 
much of her womanhood and something of her truth ; and 
while her imagination remained depressed, her answer was 
sad. In that mood she pitied Wilfrid with a ^ckless sense 
of her inability to repay him for the harm she had done 
him. The tragedies written in fresh blood all about her, 


365 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBAED CAMPAIGN, ETC. 

together with that ever-present image of the fate of Italy 
hanging in the balance, soon drew her away from personal 
reflections. She felt as one in a war-chariot, who has not 
time to cast more than a glance on the fallen. At the place 
where the ferry is, she was rejoiced by hearing positive 
news of the proximity of the Royal army. There were none 
to tell her that Charles Albert had here made his worst 
move my leaving Vicenza to the operations of the enemy, 
that he might become master of a point worthless when 
Vicenza fell into the enemy’s hands. The old Austrian 
Field-Marshal had eluded him at Mantua on that very night 
when Vittoria had seen his troops in motion. The daring 
Austrian flank-march on Vicenza, behind the fortresses of 
the Quadrilateral, was the capital stroke of the campaign. 
Rut the presence of a Piedmontese vanguard at Rivoli 
flushed the Adige with confidence, and Vittoria went on her 
way sharing the people’s delight. She reached Brescia to 
hear that Vicenza had fallen. The city was like a land¬ 
scape smitten black by the thunder-cloud. Vittoria found 
Countess Ammiani at her husband’s tomb, stiff, colourless, 
lifeless as a monument attached to the tomb. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN.—VITTORIA’s PERPLEXITY, 

The fall of Vicenza turned a tide that had overflowed its 
barriers with force enough to roll it to the Adriatic. From 
that day it was as if a violent wind blew East over Lom¬ 
bardy ; flood and wind breaking here and there a tree, bow¬ 
ing everything before them. City, fortress, and battle-field 
resisted as the eddy whirls. Venice kept her brave colours 
streaming aloft in a mighty grasp despite the storm, but 
between Venice and Milan there was this unutterable devas¬ 
tation,—so sudden a change, so complete a reversal of the 
shield, that the Lombards were at first incredulous even in 
their agony, and set their faces against it as at a monstrous 
eclipse, as though the heavens were taking false oath of its 
being night when it was day. From Vicenza and Rivoli, to 



3G8 


VITTORIA. 


Sommacampagna, and across Monte Godio to Custozza, to 
Volta on the right of the Mincio, up to the gates of Milan, 
the line of fire travelled, with a fantastic overbearing swift¬ 
ness that, upon the map, looks like the zigzag elbowing of a 
field-rocket. Vicenza fell on the 11th of June ; the Austrians 
entered Milan on the 6th of August. Within that short 
time the Lombards were struck to the dust. 

Countess Ammiani quitted Brescia for Bergamo before the ' 
worst had happened; when nothing but the king’s retreat 
upon the Lombard capital, after the good fight at Volta, was 
known. According to the king’s proclamation the Piedmon¬ 
tese army was to defend Milan, and hope was not dead. 
Vittoria succeeded in repressing all useless signs of grief in 
the presence of the venerable lady, who herself showed none, 
but simply recommended her accepted daughter to pray 
daily. “I can neither confess nor pray,” Vittoria said to^ 
the priest, a comfortable, irritable ecclesiastic, long attached 
to the family, and little able to deal with this rebel before 
Providence, that would not let her swollen spirit be bled. 
Yet she admitted to him that the countess possessed 
resources which she could find nowhere ; and she saw the 
full beauty of such inimitable grave endurance. Vittoria’s 
foolish trick of thinking for hei’self made her believe, never¬ 
theless, that the countess suffered more than she betrayed; 
was less consoled than her spiritual comforter imagined. 
She continued obstinate and unrepentant, saying, “ If my 
punishment is to come, it will at least bring experience with 
it, and I shall know why I am punished. The misery now 
is that I do not know, and do not see, the justice of the sen¬ 
tence.” 

Countess Ammiani thought better of her case than the 
priest did; or she was moio indulgent, or half indifferent. 
This girl was Carlo’s choice;—a strange choice, but the 
times were strange, and the girl was robust. The channels 
of her own and her husband’s house were drying on all sides; 
the house wanted resuscitating. There was promise that the 
girl would bear children of strong blood. Countess Ammiani 
would not for one moment have allowed the spiritual welfare 
of the children to hang in dubitation, awaiting their expe¬ 
rience of life; but a certain satisfaction was'shown in her 
faint smile when her confessor lamented over Vittoria’s 
proud stony state of moral revolt. She said to her accepted 


CLOSE OF THE LOM3ARH CAMPAIGN, ETC. OtW 

daughter, “ I shall expect jon to be prepared to espouse my 
son as soon as I have him by my side;” nor did Vifctoria’s 
silent bowing of her face assure her that strict obedience was 
implied. Precise words—“ I will,” and “ I will not fail ”— 
were exacted. The countess showed some emotion after 
Vittoria had spoken. “ Now, may (rod end this war quickly, 
if it is to go against us,” she exclaimed, trembling in her 
chair visibly a half-minute, with dropped e^yclids and lips 
moving. 

Carlo had sent word that he would join his mother as 
early as he was disengaged from active service, and mean, 
time requested her to proceed to a villa on liago Maggiore. 
Vittoria obtained permission from the countess to order the 
route of the carriage through Milan, where she wished to 
take up her mother and her maid Giacinta. For other 
reasons she would have avoided the city. The thought of 
entering it was painful with the shrewdest pain. Dante’s 
profoundly human line seemed branded on the forehead of 
Milan. 

The morning was dark when they drove through the 
streets of Bergamo. Passing one of the open places, Vittoria 
beheld a great concourse of volunteer youth and citizens, all 
of them listening to the voice of one who stood a few steps 
above them holding a banner. She gave an outcry of bitter 
joy. It was the Chief. On one side of him was Agostino, 
in the midst of memorable heads that w^ere unknown to her. 
The countess refused to stay, though Vittoria strained her 
hands together in extreme entreaty that she might for a few 
moments hear what the others were hearing. “ I speak for 
my son, and I forbid it,” Countess Ammiani said. Vittoria 
fell back and closed her eyes to cherish the vision. All 
those faces raised to the one speaker under the dark sky 
were beautiful. He had breathed some new glory of hope 
in them, making them shine beneath the overcast heavens, 
as when the sun breaks from an evening cloud and flushes 
the stems of a company of pine-trees. 

Along the road to Milan she kept imagining his utterance 
until her heart rose wdth music. A delicious stream of 
music, thin as poor tears, passed through her frame, like a 
life reviving. She reached Milan in a mood to bear the idea 
of temporary defeat. Music had forsaken her so long that 
celestial reassurances seemed to return with it. 



368 


VITTOEIA. 


Her mother Tvas at Zotti’s, very querulous, hut determined 
not to leave the house and the few people she knew. She 
had, as she told her daughter, fretted so much on her 
account that she hardly knew whether she was glad to 
see her. Tea, of course, she had given up all thoughts of; 
but now coffee was rising, and the boasted sweet bread 
of Lombardy was something to look at! She trusted that 
hlmilia would soon think of singing no more, and letting 
people rest: she might sing when she wanted money. A 
letter recently received from Mr. Pericles said that Italy 
was her child’s ruin, and she hoped Emilia was ready to do 
as he advised, and hurry to England, where singing did not 

upset people, and people lived like real Christians, not- 

Vittoria flapped her hand, and would not hear of the un¬ 
christian crimes of the South. As regarded the expected 
defence of Milan, the little woman said that, if it brought 
on a bombardment, she would call it unpardonable wicked¬ 
ness, and only hoped that her daughter would repent. 

Zotti stood by, interpreting the English to himself by 
tones. “ The amiabfe donnina is not of our persuasion,” he 
observed. “ She remains dissatisfied with patriotic Milan. 
1 have exhibited to her my dabs of bread through all the 
processes of making and baking. It is in vain. She rejects 
analogy. She is wilful as a principessina :—'Tis so ! His not 
so ! His my will ! he silent, thou ! Signora, I' have been 
treated in that way by your excellent mother.” 

“ Zotti has not been paid for three weeks, and he certainly 
has not mentioned it or looked it, I will ssij, Emilia.” 

“ Zotti has had something to think of during the last three 
weeks,” said Vittoria, touching him kindly on the arm. 

The confectioner lifted his fingers and his big brown eyes 
after them, expressive of the unutterable thoughts. He 
informed her that he had laid in a stock of flour, in the 
expectation that Carlo Alberto would defend the city. The 
Milanese were ready to aid him, though some, as Zotti con¬ 
fessed, had ceased to effervesce; and a great number who 
were perfectly ready to fight regarded his tardy appeal to 
Italian patriotism very coldly. Zotti set out in person to 
discover Giacinta. The girl could hardly fetch her breath 
when she saw her mistress. She was in Lanya’s service, 
and said that Laura had brought a wounded Englishman 
from the field of Custozza. Vittoria hurried to Laura, 


CLOSE OP THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 


369 


with whom she found Merthyr, blue-white as a corpse, 
having been shot through the body. His sister was in one 
of the Lombard hamlets, unaware of his fall; Beppo had 
been sent to her. 

They noticed one another’s embrowned complexions, but 
embraced silently. “ Twice widowed ! ” Laura said when 
they sat together. Laura hushed all speaking of the war or 
allusion to a single incident of the miseralDle campaign, 
beyond the bare recital of Yittoria’s adventures; yet when 
Vicenza by chance was mentioned, she burst out: “ They are 
not cities, they are living shrieks. They have been made 
impious for ever. Burn them to ashes, that they may not 
breathe foul upon heaven!” She had clung to the skirts of 
the army as far as the field of Custozza. “He,” she said, 
pointing to the room where Merthyr lay,—“ he groans less 
than the others I have nursed. Generally, when they 
looked at me, they appeared obliged to recollect that it was 
not I who had hurt them. Poor souls 1 some ended in great 
torment. I think of them as the happiest; for pain is a 
cloak that wraps you about, and I remember one middle-aged 
man who died softly at Custozza, and said, ‘ Beaten ! ’ To 
take that thought as your travelling companion into the gulf, 
must be worse than dying of agony; at least, 1 think so.” 

Yittoria was too well used to Laura’s way of meeting dis¬ 
aster to expect from her other than this ironical fortitude, in 
‘which the fortitude leaned so much upon the irony. What 
really astonished her was the conception Laura had taken of 
the might of Austria. Laura did not directly speak of it, 
but shadowed it in allusive hints, much as if she had in her 
mind the image of an iron roller going over a field of flowers 
—hateful, imminent, irresistible. She felt as a leaf that has 
been flying before the gale. 

Merthyr’s wound was severe. Yittoria could not leave 
him. Her resolution to stay in Milan brought her into 
collision with Countess Ammiani, when the countess reminded 
her of her promise, sedately informing her that she was no 
longer her own mistress, and had a primary duty to fulfil. 
She offered to wait three days, or until the safety of the 
wounded man was medically certified to. It was incompre¬ 
hensible to her that Yittoria should reject her terms ; and 
though it was true that she would not have listened to a 
reason, she was indignant at not hearing one given in 

2 B 


370 


VITTORIA. 


mitigation of the offence. She set out alone on her journey, 
deeply hurt. The reason was a feminine sentiment, and 
Vittoria was naturally unable to speak it. She shrank with 
pathetic horror from the thought of Merthyr’s rising from 
ins couch to find her a married woman, and desired most 
earnestly that her marriage should be witnessed by him. 
Young women will know how to reconcile .the opposition of 
the sentiment. Had Merthyr been only slightly wounded, 
and sound enough to seem to be able to bear a bitter shock, 
she would not have allowed her personal feelings to cause 
chagrin to the noble lady. The sight of her dear steadfast 
friend prostrate in the cause of Italy, and who, if he lived to 
rise again, might not have his natural strength to bear the 
thought of her'loss with his old brave firmness, made it 
impossible for her to act decisively in one direct line of 
conduct. 

Countess Ammiani wrote brief letters from Luino and 
Pallanza on Lago Maggiore. She said that Carlo w'as in the 
Como mountains ; he would expect to find his bride, and 
would accuse his mother; “ but his mother will be spared 
those reproaches,” she added, “ if the last shot fired kills, as 
it generally does, the bravest and the diparest,” 

“If it should!”—the thought rose pn,a quick breath in 
Vittoria’s bosom, and the sentiment which held her away 
dispersed like a feeble smoke, and showed her another view 
of her features. She wept wdth longing for love and depend-* 
ence. She was sick of personal freedom, tired of the exer¬ 
cise of her will, only too eager to give herself to her beloved. 
The blessedness of marriage, of peace and dependence, came 
on her imagination like a soft breeze from a hidden garden, 
like sleep. But this very longing created the resistance to 
it in the depths of her soul. There was a light as of reviving 
life, or of pain comforted, when it was she who was sitting 
by Merthyr’s side, and when at times she saw the hopeless 
effort of his hand to reach to hers, or during the long still 
hours she laid her head on his pillow, and knew that he 
breathed gratefully. The sweetness of helping him, and of 
making his breathing pleasant to him, closed much of the 
world which lay beyond her windows to her thoughts, and 
surprised her with an unknown emotion, so sl^ange to her 
that when it first swept up her veins she had the fancy that 
she had been touched by a supernatural hand, and should 



371 


CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 

have heard a flying accord of instruments. She was pray¬ 
ing before she knew what prayer was. A crucifix hung 
over Merthyr’s head. She had looked on it many times, and 
looked on it still, without seeing more than the old sorrow. 
In the night it was dim. She found herself trying to read 
the features of the thorn-crowned Head in the solitary night. 
She and it were alone with a life that was faint above the 
engulphing darkness. She prayed for the life, and trembled, 
and shed tears, and would have checked them; they seemed 
to be bearing away her little remaining strength. The tears 
streamed. No answer was given to her question, “ Why do 
I weep ?” She wept when Merthyr had passed the danger, 
as she had wept when the hours went by with shrouded 
visages ; and though she felt the diflerence in the springs of 
her tears, she thought them but a simple form of weakness 
showing shade and light. 

These tears were a vanward wave of the sea to follow; 
the rising of her voice to heaven was no more than a twitter 
of the earliest dawn before the coming of her soul’s outcry. 

“I have had a weeping fit,” she thought, and resolved to 
remember it tenderly, as being associated with her friend’s 
recovery, and a singular masterful power absolutely to look 
on the Austrians marching up the streets of Milan, and not 
to feel the surging hatred, or the nerveless despair, which 
she had supposed must be her alternatives. 

It is a mean image to say that the entry of the Austrians 
into the reconquered city was like a river of oil permeating 
a lake of vinegar, but it presents the fact in every sense. 
They demanded nothing more than submission, and placed a 
gentle foot upon the fallen enemy; and wherever they 
appeared they were isolated. The deepest wrath of the city 
was, nevertheless, not directed against them, but against 
Carlo Alberto, who had pledged his honour to defend it, and 
had forsaken it. Yittoria committed a public indiscretion 
on the day when the king left Milan to its fate: word 
whereof was conveyed to Carlo Ammianl, and he wrote to 
her. 

“ It is right that I should tell you what I have heard,” the 
letter said. “ I have heard that my bride drove up to the 
crowned traitor, after he had unmasked himself, and when 
he was quitting the Greppi palace, and that she kissed his 
band before the people—poor bleeding people of Milan ! 

2 B 2 



372 


VITTOEIA. 


This is what I hear in the Val dTntelvi :—that she despised 
the misery and just anger of the people, and, by virtue of 
her name and mine, obtained a way for him. How can she 
have acted so as to give a colour to this infamous scandal ? 
T^rue or false, it does not affect my love for her. Still, my 
dearest, what shall I say ? You keep me divided in two 
halves. My heart is out of me; and if I had a will, I think 
I should be harsh with you. You are absent from my 
mother at a time when we are about to strike another blow. 
Go to her. It is kindness ; it is charity : I do not say duty.. 
I remember that I did write harshly to you from Brescia. 
Then our march was so clear in view that a little thing 
ruffled me. Was it a little thing ? But to applaud the 
Traitor now! To uphold him who has spilt our blood only 
to hand the country over to the old gaolers ! He lent us his 
army like a Jew, for huge interest. Can you not read him ? 
If not, cease, I implore you, to think at all for yourself. 

“ Is this a lover’s letter ? I know that my beloved will 
see the love in it. To me your acts are fair and good as the 
chronicle of a saint. I find you creating suspicion—almost 
justifying it in others, and putting your name in the mouth 
of a madman who denounces you. I shall not speak more of 
him. Remember that my faith in you is unchangeable, and 
I pray you to have the same in me. 

“ I sent you a greeting from the Chief. He marched in 
the ranks from Bergamo. I saw him on the line of march 
strip off his coat to shelter a young lad from the heavy rain. 
He is not discouraged; none are who have been near him. 

“ Angelo is here, and so is our Agostino ; and I assure you 
he loads and fires a carbine much more deliberately than he 
composes a sonnet. I am afraid that your adored Antonio- 
Pericles fared badly among our fellows, but I could gather 
no particulars. 

“ Oh ! the bright two minutes when I held you right in 
my heart. That spot on the Vicentino is alone unclouded. 
If I live I will have that bit of ground. I will make a 
temple of it. I could reach it blindfolded.” 

A townsman of Milan brought this letter to Vittoria. She 
despatched Luigi with her reply, which met the charge in a 
straightforward affirmative. ) 

“ I was driving to Zotti’s by the Greppi palace, when I 
saw the king come forth, and the people hooted him. I 


CLOSE OP THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN, ETC. 373 

stood up, and petitioned to kiss his hand. The people knew 
me. They did not hoot any more for some time. 

“ So that you have heard the truth, and you must jud^e 
me by it. I cannot even add that I am sorry, though I strive 
to wish that I had not been present. I might wish it really, 
if I did not feel it to be a cowardly wish. 

“ Oh, my Carlo ! my lover ! my husband I you would not 
have me go against my nature ? I have seen the king upon 
the battle-field. He has deigned to speak to me of Italy 
and our freedom. I have seen him facing our enemy; and 
to see him hooted by the people, and in misfortune and with 
sad eyes !—he looked sad and nothing else—and besides, I 
am sure I know the king. I mean that I understand him. 
I am half ashamed to write so boldly, even to you. I say to 
myself you should know me, at least; and if I am guilty of 
a piece of vanity, you should know that also. Carlo Alberto 
is quite unlike other men. He worships success as much ; 
but they are not, as he is, so much bettered by adversity. 
Indeed I do not believe that he has exact intentions of any 
sort, or ever had the intention to betray us, or has done so 
in reality, that is, meaningly, of his own will. Count Medol© 
and his party did, as you know, offer Lombardy to him, and 
Venice gave herself—brave, noble Venice! Oh I if we two 
were there—Venice has England’s sea-spirit. But did we 
not flatter the king ? And ask yourself, my Carlo, could a 
king move in such an enterprise as a common person ? Ought 
we not to be in union with Sardinia ? How can we be if we 
reject her king ? Is it not the only positive army that we 
can look to—I mean regular army ? Should we not make 
some excuses for one w'ho is not in our position ? 

“ I feel that I push my questions like waves that fall and 
cannot get beyond—they crave so for answers agreeing to 
them. This should make me doubt myself, perhaps ; but 
they crowd again, and seem so conclusive until I have 
written them clown. I am unworthy to struggle with your 
intellect; but I say to myself, how unworthy of you I should 
be if I did not use my own, such as it is 1 The poor king 
had to conclude an armistice to save his little kingdom. 
Perhaps we ought to think of that ‘sternly. My heart is 
filled with pity. 

“ It cannot but be right that you should know the worst 
of me. I call you my husband, and tremble to be permitted 


374 


VITTORIA. 


to lean my head on your bosom for hours, my sweet lover! 
And yet my cowardice, if I had let the king go by without a 
reverential greeting from me, in his adversity, would have 
rendered me insufferable to myself. You are hearing me, 
and I am compelled to say, that rather than behave so 
basely I would forfeit your love, and be widowed till death 
should offer us for God to join us. Does your face change 
to me ? 

“ Dearest, and I say it when the thought of you sets me 
almost swooning. I find my hands clasped, and I am mut¬ 
tering I Know not what, and I am blushing. The ground 
seems to rock; I can barely breathe; my heart is like a bird 
caught in the hands of a cruel boy : it will not rest. I fear 
everything. I hear a whisper, '"Belay not an instant!’ and it 
is like a furnace; ‘ Hasten to him! Speed!’ and I seem to 
totter forward and drop—I think I have lost you—I am like 
one dead. 

“ I remain here to nurse our dear friend Merthyr. Eor 
that reason I am absent from your mother. It is her desire 
that w'e should be married. 

“ Soon, soon, my own soul 1 

“ I seem to be hanging on a tree for you, swayed by such 
a teazing wind. 

“ Oh, soon! or I feel that I shall hate any vestige of will 
that I have in this head of mine. Not in the heart—it is 
not there! 

“ And sometimes I am burning to sing. The voice leaps 
to my lips ; it is quite like a thing that lives apart—my 
prisoner. 

“ It is true, Laura is here with Merthyr. 

“ Could you come at once ?—not here, but to Pallanza ? 
We shall both make our mother happy. This she wishes, 
this she lives for, this consoles her—and oh, this gives me 
peace ! Yes, Merthyr is recovering I I can leave him with¬ 
out the dread 1 had; and Laura cot lesses to the feminine 
sentiment, if her funny jealousy of a rival nurse is really 
simply feminine. She will be glad of our resolve, I am sure. 
And then you will order all my actions ; and I shall be cer¬ 
tain that they are such as I w'ould proudly call^ mine ; and I 
shall be shut away from the world. Yes; let it be so! 
Addio. I reserve all sweet names for you. Addio. In 
Pallanza :—no not Pallanza—Paradise 1 


CLOSE OP THE LOMBAED CAMPAIGN, ETC. 375 

“ HusTi! and do not smile at me:—it was not my I 
discover, but my want of will, that distracted me. 

“ See my last signature of—not Vittoria; for 1 may sign 
that again and still be Emilia Alessandra Ammiani— 

“ Sandra Belloni.’* 

The letter was sealed; Luigi bore it away, and a brief 
letter to Countess Ammiani, in Pallanza, as well. 

Vittoria was relieved of her anxiety concerning Merthyr 
by the arrival of Georgiana, who had been compelled to 
make her w’ay round by Piacenza and Turin, where she had 
left Gambier, with Beppo in attendance on him. Georgiana 
at once assumed all the duties of head-nurse, and the more 
resolutely because of her brother’s evident moral weakness 
in sighing for the hand of a fickle girl to smooth his pillow. 

“ When he is stronger you can sit beside him a little,” she 
said to Vittoria, who surrendered her post without a struggle, 
and rarely saw him, though Laura told her that his frequent 
exclamation was her name, accompanied by a soft look at 
his sister—“ which would have stirred my heart like poor 
old Milan last March,” Laura added, with a lift of her 
shoulders. 

Georgiana’s icy manner appeared infinitely strange to 
Vittoria when she heard from Merthyr that his sister had 
become engaged to Captain Gambier. 

“ Nothing softens these women,” said Laura, putting 
Georgiana in a class. 

“ I wish you could try the effect of your winning Merthyr,” 
Vittoria suggested. 

“ I remember that when I went to my husband, I likewise 
wanted every woman of my acquaintance to be married.” 
Laura sighed deeply. “ What is this poor withered body of 
mine now ? It feels like an old volcano, cindery, with fire 
somewhere :—a charming bride ! My dear, if I live till my 
children make me a grandmother, I shall look on the love of 
men and women as a toy that I have played with. A new 
husband ? I must be dragged through the Circles of Dante 
before I can conceive it, and then I should loathe the 
stranger.” 

News came that the volunteers were crushed. It was 
time for Vittoria to start for Pallanza, and she thought of 
her leave-taking; a final leave-taking, in one sense, to the 


37G 


VITTOEIA. 


friends wlio had cared too mucli for her. Laura delicately 
drew Georgiana aside in the sick-room, which she would not 
quit, and alluded to the necessity for Vittoria’s departure 
without stating exactly wherefore: but Georgiana was a 
Welshwpman. Partly to show her accurate power of guess¬ 
ing, and chiefly that she might reprove Laura’s insulting 
whisper, which outraged and irritated her as much as if 
“ Oh! your poor brother!” had been exclaimed, she made 
display of Merthyr’s manly coldness by saying aloud, “ You 
mean, that she is going to her marriage.” Laura turned her 
face to Merthyr. He had striven to rise on his elbow, and 
had dropped flat in his helplessness. Big tears were rolling 
down his cheeks. His articulation failed him, beyond a 
reiterated “No, no,” pitiful to hear, and he broke into 
childish sobs. Georgiana hurried Laura from the room. 
By-and-by the doctor was promptly summoned, and it was 
Georgiana herself, miserably humbled, who obtained Vit¬ 
toria’s sworn consent to keep the life in Merthyr by lingering 
yet awhile. 

Meantime Luigi brought a letter from Pallanza in Carlo’s 
handwriting. This was the burden of it:— 

“ I am here, and you are absent. Hasten 1** 


CHAPTER XXXYI. 

A FEESH ENTANGLEMENT. 

The Lenkenstein ladies returned to Milan proudly in the 
path of the army which they had followed along the city 
walls on the black March midnight. The ladies of the Aus¬ 
trian aristocracy generally had to be exiles from Vienna, and 
were glad to flock together even in an alien city. Anna and 
Lena were aware of Vittoria’s residence in Milan, through 
the interchange of visits between the Countess of Lenken¬ 
stein and her sister Signora Piaveni. They heard also of 
Vittoria’s prospective and approaching marriage to Count 
Ammiani. The Duchess of Graatli, who had forborne a visit 
to her unhappy friends, lest her Austrian face should wound 
their sensitiveness, was in company with the Lenkensteins 



A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT. 


377 


one day, when Irma di Karski called on them. Irma had 
come from Lago Maggiore, where she had left her patron, as 
she was pleased to term Antonio-Pericles. She was full of 
chatter of that most worthy man’s deplorable experiences of 
Vittoria’s behaviour to him during the war, and of many 
.things besides. According to her account, Vittoria had en¬ 
ticed him from place to place with promises that the next 
day, and the next day, and the day after, she would be ready 
to keep her engagement to go to London, and at last she had 
given him the slip and left him to be plucked like a pullet by 
a horde of volunteer banditti, out of whose hands Antonio- 
Pericles—“ one of our richest millionaires in Europe, cer¬ 
tainly our richest amateur,” said Irma—escaped in fit outward 
condition for the garden of Eden. 

Count Karl was lying on the sofa, and went into endless 
invalid’s laughter at the picture presented by lima of the 
‘ wild man ’ wanderings of poor infatuated Pericles, which 
was exaggerated, though not intentionally, for Irma repeated 
the words and gestures of Pericles in the recital of his tribu¬ 
lations. Being of a somewhat similar physical organization, 
she did it very laughably. Irma declared that Pericles was 
cured of his infatuation. He had got to Turin, intending 
to quit Italy for ever, when—“ he met me,” said Irma 
modestly. 

“ And heard that the war was at an end,” Count Karl added. 

“ And he has taken the superb Villa Ricciardi, on Lago 
Maggiore, where he will have a troupe of singers, and per¬ 
form operas, in which I believe 1 may possibly act as prima 
donna. The truth is, I would do anything to prevent him 
from leaving the country.” 

But Irma had more to say; with “I bear no malice,” she 
commenced it. The story she had heard was that Count 
Ammiani, after plighting himself to a certain signorina, 
known as Vittoria Campa, had received tidings that she was 
one of those persons who bring discredit on Irma’s profession. 
“ Gifted by nature, I can acknowledge,” said Irma; “ but 
devoured by vanity—a perfect slave to the appetite for praise; 
ready to forfeit anything for flattery! Poor signor Antonio- 
Pericles!—he knows her.’' And now Count Ammiani, per¬ 
suaded to reason by his mother, had given her up. There 
was nothing more positive, for Irma had seen him in the 
society of Countess Violetta d’lsoreUa. 


378 


VITTORIA. 


Anna and Lena glanced at their brother Karl. 

“ I should not allude to what is not. notorious,” Irma 
pursued. “ They are always together. My dear Antonio- 
Pericles is most amusing in his expressions of delight at it. 
For my part, though she served me an evil turn once,—you 
will hardly believe, ladies, that in her jealousy of me she was 
guilty of the most shameful machinations to get me out of 
the way on the night of the first performance of Camilla ^—■ 
but, for my part, I bear no malice. The creature is an inve. 
terate rebel, and I dislike her for that, I do confess.” 

“ The signorina Vittoria Campa is my particular and very 
dear friend,” said the duchess. 

“ She is not the less an inveterate rebel,” said Anna. 

Count Karl gave a long-drawn sigh. “ Alas, that she 
should have brought discredit on Fraulein di Karski’s pro¬ 
fession !” 

The duchess hurried straightway to Laura, with whom 
was Count Serabiglione, reviewing the present posture of 
affairs from the condescending altitudes of one that has 
foretold it. Laura and Amalia embraced and w'ent apart. 
During their absence Vittoria came down to the count and 
listened to a familiar illustration of his theory of the rela¬ 
tions which should exist between Italy and Austria, derived 
from the friendship of those two women. 

“ What I wish you to see, signorina, is that such an alliance 
is possible ; and, if we supply the brains, as we do, is by no 
means likely to be degrading. These bears are absolutely 
on their knees to us for good fellowship. You have in- 
fiuence, you have amazing wit, you have unparalleled beauty, 
and, let me say it Avith the utmost sadness, you have now 
had experience. Why will you not recognize facts ? Italian 
unity! I have exposed the fatuity—Avho listens? Italian 
freedom I I do not attempt to reason with my daughter. 
She is pricked by an envenomed fly of Satan. Yet, behold 
her and the duchess 1 It is the A^ery union I preach; and I 
am, I declare to you, signorina, in great danger. I feel it, 
but I persist. I am in danger” (Count Serabiglione bowed 
his head Jew) “of the transcendent sin of scorn of my species.’* 

The lijitle nobleman SAvayed deploringly in his chair. 
“Kpthing js SO perilous for a soul’s salvation, as that. The 
one sane apiong madmen ! The one AA'hose reason is left to 
him ajnong jihoiis^nds Avho have foi-saken it 1 I beg you to 


A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT. 


379 


realize the idea. The Emperor, as I am given to understand, 
is about to make public admission of my services. I shall 
be all the more hated. Yet it is a considerable gain. I do 
not deny that I esteem it as a promotion for my services. 
I shall not be the first martyr in this world, signorina.” 

Count Serabiglione produced a martyr’s smile. 

“ The profits of my expected posts will be,” he was saying, 
with a reckoning eye .cast upward into his cranium for 
accuracy, when Laura returned, and Vittoria ran out to the 
duchess. Amalia repeated Irma’s tattle. A curious little 
twitching of the brows at Violetta d’Isorella’s name marked 
the reception of it. 

“ She is most lovely,” Vittoria said. 

“ And absolutely reckless.” 

“ She is an old friend of Count Ammiani’s.” 

“ And you have an old friend here. But the old friend 
of a young woman—I need not say further than that it is 
different.” 

The duchess used the privilege of her affection, and urged 
Vittoria not to trifle wfith her lover’s impatience. 

Admitted to the chamber where Meilhyr lay, she was 
enabled to make allowance for her irresolution. The face 
of the wounded man was like a lake-water taking light from 
Vittoria’s presence. 

“ This may go on for weeks,” she said to Laura. 

Three days later, Vittoria received an order from the 
Government to quit the city within a prescribed number 
of hours, and her brain was racked to discover why Laura 
appeared so little indignant at the barbarous act of despotism. 
Laura undertook to break the bad news to Merthyr. The 
parting w^as as quiet and cheerful as, in the opposite degree, 
Vittoria had thought it would be melancholy and regretful. 
“ What a Government!” Merthyr said, and told her to let 
him hear of any changes. “ All changes that please my 
friends please me.” 

Vittoria kissed his forehead with one grateful murmur of 
farewell to the bravest heart she had ever known. The 
going to her happiness seemed more like going to something 
fatal until she reached the Lago Maggiore. There she saw 
September beauty, and felt as if the splendour encircling 
her were her bridal decoration. But no bridegroom stood 
to greet her on the terrace-steps between the potted orange 


380 


VITTORIA. 


and citron trees. Conntess Ammiani extended kind hands 
to her at arms’ length. 

“You have come,” she said. “I hope that it is not too 
late.” 

Vittoria was a week without sight of her lover : nor did 
Countess Ammiani attempt to explain her w'ords, or speak 
of other than common daily things. In body and soul Vit¬ 
toria had taken a chill. The silent blame resting on her in 
this house called up her pride, so that she would not ask any 
questions; and when Carlo came, she wanted warmth to 
melt her. Their meeting was that of two passionless crea¬ 
tures. Carlo kissed her loyally, and courteously inquired 
after her health and the health of friends in Milan, and then 
he rallied his mother. Agostino had arrived with him, and 
the old man, being in one of his soft moods, unvexed by his 
conceits, Vittoria had some comfort from him of a dull kind. 
She heard Carlo telling his mother that he must go in the 
morning. Agostino replied to her quick look at him, “ I 
stay ;” and it seemed like a little saved from the wreck, for 
she knew that she could speak to Agostino as she could not 
to the countess. When his mother prepared to retire. Carlo 
walked over to his bride, and repeated rapidly and brightly 
his inquiries after friends in Milan. She, with a pure 
response to his natural-unnatural manner, spoke of Merthyr 
Powys chiefly: to which he said several times, “ Deal 
fellow !” and added, “ I shall always love Englishmen for his 
sake.” 

This gave her one throb. “ I could not leave him. Carlo.” 

“ Certainly not, certainly not,” said Carlo. “I should have 
been happy to wait on him myself. I was busy. I am still. 
I dare say you have guessed that I have a new journal in 
my head: the Fallanza Iris is to be the name of it;—to be 
printed in three colours, to advocate three principles, in 
three styles. The Legitimists, the Moderates, and the 
Republicans are to proclaim themselves in its columns in 
prose, poetry, and hotch-potch. Once an editor, always an 
editor. The authorities suspect that something of the sort 
is about to be planted, so I can only make occasional visits 
here :—therefore, as you will believe,”—Carlo let his voice 
fall—“ I have good reason to hate them still. They may 
cease to persecute me soon.” 

He insisted upon lighting his mother to her room. Vit- 


A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT. 


381 


toria and Agostino sat talking of the Chief and the minor 
events of the war—of Luciano, Marco, Ginlio, and Ugo 
Corte—till the conviction fastened on them that Carlo would 
not return, when Agostino stood iip and said, yawning 
wearily, “ I’ll talk further to you, my child, to-morrow.” 

She begged that it might be now. 

“No; to-morrow,” said he. 

“ Now, now !” she reiterated, and brought down a reproof 
from his forefinger. 

“ The poetic definition of ‘ now ’ is that it is a small boat, 
my daughter, in which the female heart is constantly push¬ 
ing out to sea and sinking. ‘ To-morrow’ is an island in the 
deeps, where grain grows. When I land you there, I will 
talk to you.” 

She knew that he went to join Carlo after he had quitted 
her. 

Agostino was true to his promise next day. He brought 
her nearer to what she had to face, though he ,did not help 
her vision much. Carlo had gone before sunrise. 

They sat on the terrace above the lake, screened from the 
sunlight by thick myrtle bushes. Agostino smoked his 
loosely-rolled cigarettes, and Vittoria sipped chocolate and 
looked upward to the summit of the Motterone, with many 
thoughts and images in her mind. 

He commenced by giving her a love-message from Carlo. 
“ Hold fast to it that he means it: conduct is -never a 
straight index whei-e the heart’s involved,” said the chuck¬ 
ling old man; “ or it is not in times like ours. You have been 
in the wrong, and your having a good excuse will not help 
you before the deciding fates. Woman that you are ! did 
you not think that because w’e were beaten we were going to 
rest for a very long while, and that your Carlo of yesterday 
was going to be your Carlo of to-day ?” 

Vittoria tacitly confessed to it. 

“ Ay,” he pursued, “when you wrote to him in the Yal 
d’lntelvi, you supposed you had only to say, ‘ I am ready,’ 
which w^as then the case. You made your summer and left 
the fruits to hang, and now you are astounded that seasons 
pass and fruits drop. You should have come to this place, 
if but for a pair of days, and so have fixed one matter in the 
chapter. This is how the chapter has run on. I see I talk 
to a stunned head; you are thinking that Carlo’s love for 


382 


YITTORIA. 


you can’t liave changed; and it has not, but occasion has 
gone and times have changed. Now listen. The countess 
desired the marriage. Carlo could not go to you in Milan 
with the sword in his hand. Therefore you had to come to 
him. He waited for you, perhaps for his own preposterous 
lover’s sake as much as to make his mother’s heart easy. If 
she loses him she loses everything, unless he leaves a wife to 
her care and the hope that her House will not be extinct, 
which is possibly not much more the weakness of old aris¬ 
tocracy than of human nature. 

“ Meantime, his brothers-in-arms had broken up and 
entered Piedmont, and he remained waiting for you still. 
You are thinking that he had not waited a month. But if 
four months finished Lombardy, less than one month is 
quite sufficient to do the same for us little beings. He met 
the Countess d’Isorella here. You have to thank her for 
seeing him at all, so don’t wrinkle your forehead yet. 
Luciano Bomara is drilling his men in Piedmont; Angelo 
Guidascarpi has gone there. Carlo was considering it his 
duty to join Luciano, when he met this lady, and she has 
apparently succeeded in altering his plans. Luciano and 
his band will go to Rome. Carlo fancies that another blow 
will be struck for Lombardy. This lady should know; the 
point is, whether she can be trusted. She persists in 
declaring that Carlo’s duty is to remain, and—I cannot tell 
how, for I am as a child among women—she has persuaded 
him of her sincerity. Favour me now with your clearest 
understanding, and deliver it from feminine sensations of 
any description for just two minutes.” 

Agostino threw away the end of a cigarette and looked 
for firmness in Vittoria’s eyes. 

“ This Countess d’Isorella is opposed to Carlo’s marriage 
at present. She says that she is betraying the king’s 
secrets, and has no reliance on a woman. As a woman you 
will pardon her, for it is the language of your sex. You 
are also denounced by Barto Rizzo, a madman—he went 
mad as fire, and had to be chained at Varese. In some way 
or other Countess d’Isorella got possession of him; she has 
managed to subdue him. A sword-cut he received once in 
Verona has undoubtedly affected his brain, or caused it to 
be affected under strong excitement. He is at her villa, 
and she says—perhaps with some truth—that Carlo would 


A FEESH ENTANGLEMENT. 


383 


in several ways lose his influence by his immediate marriage 
with you. The reason must have weight; otherwise he 
would fulfil his mother’s principal request, and be at the* 
bidding of his own desire. There; I hope I hav^e spoken 
plainly.” 

Agostino puffed a sigh of relief at the conclusion of his 
task. 

Vittoria had been too strenuously engaged in defending 
the steadiness of her own eyes to notice the shadow of an 
assumption of frankness in his. 

She said that she understood. 

She got away to her room like an insect carrying a load 
thrice its own size. All that she could really gather from 
Agostino’s words was, that she felt herself rocking in a 
tower, and that Violetta dTsorella was beautiful. She had 
striven hard to listen to him with her wits alone, and her 
sensations subsequently revenged themselves in this fashion. 
The tower rocked and struck a bell that she discovered to 
be her betraying voice uttering cries of pain. She was for 
hours incapable of meeting Agostino again. His delicate 
intuition took the harshness off the meeting. He led her 
even to examine her state of mind, and to discern the fancies 
from the feelings by which she was agitated. He said 
shrewdly and bluntly, “ You can master pain, but not doubt. 
If you show a sign of unhappiness, remember that I shall 
know you doubt both what I have told you, and Carlo as 
well.” 

Vittoria fenced: “But is there such a thing as hap¬ 
piness ?” 

“ I should imagine so,” said Agostino, touching her cheek, 
“ and slipperiness likewise. There’s patience at any rate ; 
only you must dig for it. You arrive at nothing, but the 
eternal digging constitutes the object gained. I recollect 
when I was a raw lad, full of ambition, in love, and without 
a franc in my pockets, one night in Paris, I found myself 
looking up at a street lamp; there was a moch in it. He 
couldn’t get out, so he had very little to trouble his con¬ 
science. I think he was near happiness : he ought to have 
been happy. My luck was not so good, or you wouldn’t see 
me still alive, my dear.” ♦ 

Vittoria sighed for a plainer speaker. 


384 


ViTTOKIA. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

ON LAGO MAGGIOEE. 

Carlo’s hours were passed chiefly across the lake, in the 
Piedmontese valleys. When at Pallanza he was restless, 
and he shunned the two or three minutes of privacy with his 
betrothed which the rigorous Italian laws besetting courtship 
might have allowed him to take. He had perpetually the 
look of a man starting from wine. It was evident that he 
and Countess d’lsorella continued to hold close communi¬ 
cation, for she came regularly to the villa to meet him. 
On these occasions Countess Ammiani accorded her one 
ceremonious interview, and straightway locked herself in 
her room. Violetta’s grace of ease and vivacity soared too 
high to be subject to any hostile judgement of her character. 
She seemed to rely entirely on the force of her beauty, and 
to care little for those who did not acknowledge it. She 
accepted public compliments quite royally, nor was Agos- 
tino backward in offering them. “ And you have a voice, 
you know,” he sometimes said aside to Yittoria; but she 
had forgotten how easily she could swallow great praise of 
her voice ; she had almost forgotten her voice. Her delight 
was to hang her head above inverted mountains in the lake, 
and dream that she was just something better than the 
poorest of human creatures. She could not avoid putting 
her mind in competition with this brilliant woman’s, and 
feeling eclipsed ; and her weakness became pitiable. But 
Countess d’lsorella mentioned once that Pericles was at the 
Villa Ricciardi, projecting magniflcent operatic entertain¬ 
ments. The reviving of a passion to sing possessed Vit- 
toria like a thirst for freedom, and instantly confused all 
the reflected images within her, as the fury of a sudden wind 
from the high Alps scourges the glassy surface of the lake. 
She begged Countess Ammiani’s permission that she might 
propose to Pericles to sing in his private operatic company, 
in any part, at the shortest notice.' 

“ You wish to leave me ?” said the countess, and resolutely 
conceived it. 

Speaking to her son on this subject, she thought it 
necessary to make some excuse for a singer’s instinct, who 


ON LAGO MAGGIOEE. 


385 


really did not live save on the stage. It aransed Carlo; he knew 
when his mother was really angry with persons she tried to 
shield from the anger of others ; and her not seeing the 
wrong on his side in his behaviour to his betrothed was 
laughable. iSTevertheless she had divined the case more 
correctly than he: the lover was hurt. After what he had 
endured, he supposed, wdth all his forgiveness, that he had 
an illimitable claim upon his bride’s patience. He told his 
mother to speak to her openly. 

“ Why not you, my Carlo ? ” said the countess. 

“ Because, mother, if I speak to her, I shall end by throw¬ 
ing out my arms and calling for the priest.” 

“ I would clap hands to that.” 

“We will see; it may be soon or late, but it can’t be 
now. 

“ How much am I to tell her, Carlo ? ” 

“ Enough to keep her from fretting.” 

The countess then asked herself how much she knew. 
Her habit of receiving her son’s word and will as supreme 
kept her ignorant of anything beyond the outline of his 
plans; and being told to speak openly of them to another, 
she discovered that her acquiescing imagination supplied 
the chief part of her knowledge. She was ashamed also to 
have it thought, even by Carlo, that she had not gathered 
every detail of his occupation, so that she could not argue 
against him, and had to submit to see her dearest wishes 
lightly swept aside. 

“ I beg you to tell me what you think of Countess 
d’Isorella; not the afterthought,” she said to Vittoria. 

“ She is beautiful, dear Countess Ammiani.” 

“ Call me mother now and then. Yes : she is beautiful. 
She has a bad name.” 

“ Envy must have given it, I think.” 

“ Of course she provokes envy. But I say that her name 
is bad, as envy could not make it. She is a woman who goes 
on missions, and carries a husband into society like a pass¬ 
port. You have only thought of her beauty ?” 

“ I can see nothing else,” said Vittoria, whose torture at 
the sight of the beauty was appeased by her disingenuous 
pleading on its behalf. 

“ In my time Beauty was a sinner,” the countess resumed. 
“ My confessor has filled my ears with warnings that it is a 

2 c 


S86 


VlTTOlilA. 


net to the soul, a weapon for devils. May the saints of 
Paradise make bare the beauty of this woman. She has 
persuaded Carlo that she is serving the country. You have 
let him lie here alone in a fruitless bed, silly girl. He 
stayed for you while his comrades called him to Vercelli, 
where they are assembled. The man whom he salutes as 
his Chief gave him word to go there. They are bound for 
Pome. Ah me! Rome is a great name, but Lombardy is 
Carlo’s natal home, and Lombardy bleeds. You were 
absent—how long you were absent! If you could know the 
heaviness of those days of his waiting for you. And it 
was I who kept him here 1 I must have omitted a prayer, 
for he would have been at Vercelli now with Luciano and 
Emilio, and you might have gone to him ; but he met this 
woman, who has convinced him that Piedmont will make a 
Winter march, and that his marriage must be delayed.” 
The countess raised her face and drooped her hands from 
the wrists, exclaiming, “If I have lately omitted one prayer, 
enlighten me, blessed heaven ! I am blind ; I cannot see for 
my son ; I am quite blind. I do not love the woman ; there¬ 
fore I doubt m^'self. You, my daughter, tell me your 
thought of her, tell me what you think. Young eyes 
observe; young heads are sometimes shrewd in guessing.” 

Yittoriasaid, after a pause, “ I will believe her to be true, 
if she supports the king.” It was hardly truthful speaking 
on her part. 

“How can Carlo have been persuaded!” the countess 
sighed. 

“ By me ?” Vittoria asked herself, and for a moment she 
was exulting. 

She spoke from that emotion when it had 6cased to animate 
her. 

“ Carlo was angry with the king. He echoed Agostino, 
but Agostino docs not sting as he did, and Carlo cannot 
avoid seeing what the king has sacrificed. Perhaps the 
Countess d’Isorella has shown him promises of fresh aid in 
the king’s handwriting. Suffering has made Carlo Alberto 
one with the Republicans, if he had other ambitions once. 
And Carlo dedicates his blood to Lombardy : he does rightly. 
Dear coantess—my mother ! I have made him wait for me; 
I will be patient in waiting for him. I know that Countess 
d’ [sorella is intimate with the king. There is a man named 


ON LAGO MAGGIORE. 


387 


Barto Rizzo, wlio thinks me a guilty traitress, and she is 
making use of this man. That must he her reason for pro¬ 
hibiting the marriage. She cannot be false if she is capable 
of uniting extreme revolutionary agents and the king in one 
plot, I think; I do not know.” Vittoria concluded her per¬ 
fect expression of confidence with this atoning doubtfulness. 

Countess Ammiani obtained her consent that she would 
not quit her side. 

After Violetta had gone. Carlo, though he shunned secret 
interviews, addressed his betrothed as one who was not 
strange to his occupation and the trial his heart was under¬ 
going. She could not doubt that she was beloved, in spite of 
the colourlessness and tonelessness of a love that appealed to 
her intellect. He showed her a letter he had received from 
Laura, laughing at its abuse of Countess dTsorella, and the 
sarcasms levelled at himself. 

In this letter Laura said that she was engaged in some¬ 
thing besides nursing. 

Carlo pointed his finger to the sentence, and remarked, 
“ I mast have your promise—a word from you is enough— 
that you will not meddle with any intrigue.” 

Vittoria gave the promise, half trusting it to bring the lost 
bloom of their love to him ; but he received it as a plain 
matter of necessity. Certain of his love, she wondered pain¬ 
fully that it should continue so barren of music. 

“ Why am I to pledge myself that I will be useless ?” she 
asked. “ You mean, my Carlo, that I am to sit still, and 
watch, and wait.” 

He answered, “ I will tell you this much : I can be struck 
vitally through you. In the game I am playing, I am able 
to defend myself. If you enter it, distraction begins. Stay 
with my mother.” 

“ Am I to know nothing ?” 

“ Everything—in good time.” 

“ I might—might I not help you, my Carlo ?” 

“ Yes ; and nobly too. And I show you the way.” 

Agostino and Carlo made an expedition to Turin. Before 
he went. Carlo took her in his arms. 

“ Is it coming ?” she said, shutting her eyelids like a child 
expecting the report of firearms. 

He pressed his lips to the closed eyes. “ Hot yet; but are 
you growing timid ?” 


2c2 


388 


VITTORIA. 


His voice seemed to reprove her. 

She could have told him that keepins^ her in the dark 
amoug unknown terrors ruined her courage ; but the minutes 
w'ere too precious, his touch too sweet. In eyes and hands 
he had become her lover again. The blissful minutes rolled 
away like waves that keep the sunshine out at sea. 

Her solitude in the villa was beguiled by the arrival of the 
score of an operatic scena, entitled “ Hagar,” by Rocco Ricci, 
which she fancied that either Carlo or her dear old master 
had sent, and she devoured it. 'She thought it written ex¬ 
pressly for her. With Hagar she communed during the long 
hours, and sang herself on to the verge of an imagined desert 
beyond the mountain-shadowed lake and the last view of her 
beloved Motterone. Hagar’s face of tears in the Brera was 
known to her; and Hagar in her ‘Addio’ gave the living 
voice to that dumb one. Vittoria revelled in the delicious 
vocal misery. She expanded with the sorrow of poor Hagar, 
whose tears refreshed her, and parted her from her recent 
narrowing self-consciousness. The great green mountain 
fronted her like a living presence. Motterone supplied the 
'place of the robust and venerable patriarch, whom she 
reproached, and worshipped, but with a fathomless burden¬ 
some sense of cruel injustice, deeper than the tears or the 
voice w'hich spoke of it: a feeling of subjected love that was 
like a mother’s giving suck to a detested child. Countess 
Ammiani saw the abrupt alteration of her step and look with 
a dim surprise. “ What do you conceal from me ?” she 
asked, and supplied the answer by charitably attributing it 
to news that the signora Piaveni w^as coming. 

When Laura came, the countess thanked her, saying—“ I 
am a wretched companion for this boiling head.” 

Laura soon proved to her that she had been the best, for 
after very few hours Vittoria was looking like the Hagar on 
the canvas. 

A woman such as Violetta d’Isorella was of the sort from 
which Laura shrank with all her feminine power of loathing; 
but she spoke of her with some effort at personal tolerance 
until she heard of Violetta’s stipulation for the deferring of 
Carlo’s marriage, and contrived to guess that Carlo was 
reserved and unfamiliar with his betrothed. Then she cried 
out, “ Fool that he is! Is it ever possible to come to the 
end of the folly of men ? She has inflamed his vanity. She 


ON TAGO MAGGIORE. 


380 


met him when yon were holding him waiting, and no doubt 
she commenced with lamentations over the country, followed 
by a sigh, a fixed look, a cheerful air, and the assurance to 
him that she knew it—uttered as if through the keyhole of 
the royal cabinet—she knew that Sardinia would break the 
Salasco armistice in a month :—if only, if the king could be 
sure of support from the youth of Lombardy.” 

“ Do you suspect the unhappy king ?” Vittoria inter¬ 
posed. 

“ Grasp your colours tight,” said Laura, nodding sarcastic 
approbation of such fidelity, and smiling slightly. “ There 
has been no mention of the king. Countess dTsorella is a 
spy'and a tool of the Jesuits, taking pay from all parties— 
Austrian as well, I would swear. Their object is to paralyze 
the march on Rome, and she has won Carlo for them. I am 
told that Barto Rizzo is another of her conquests. Thus she 
has a madman and a fool, and what may not be done with a 
madman and a fool ? However, I have set a watch on her. 
She must have inflamed Carlo’s vanity. He has it, just as 
they all have. There’s trickery : I would rather behold the 
boy charging at the head of a column than putting faith in 
this base creature. She must have simulated well,” Laura 
went on talking to herself. 

“ What trickery ?” said Vittoria. 

“ He was in love with the woman when he was a lad,” 
Laura replied, and pertinently to Yittoria’s feelings. This 
threw the moist shade across her features. 

Beppo in Turin and Luigi on the lake were the watch set 
on Countess d’Isorella; they were useless save to fortify 
Laura’s suspicions. The Duchess of Graatli wrote mere 
gossip from Milan. She mentioned that Anna of Lenken- 
stein had visited with her the tomb of her brother Count 
Paul at Bologna, and had returned in double mourning; and 
that Madame Sedley—“ the sister of our poor ruined Pier¬ 
son ”—had obtained grace, for herself at least, from Anna, 
by casting herself at Anna’s feet, and that they were now 
fi'iends. 

Vittoria felt ashamed of Adela. 

When Carlo returned, the signora attacked him boldly 
with all her weapons; reproached him; said, “Would my 
husband have treated me in such a manner ?” Carlo twisted 
his moustache and stroked his young beard for patience. 


390 


vittoeia. 


They passed from room to balcony and terrace, and Laura 
brought him back into company without cessation of her fir© 
of questions and sarcasms, saying, “ No, no ; we will speak 
of these things publicly.” She appealed alternately to 
Agostino, Vittoria, and Countess Ammiani for support, and 
as she certainly spoke sense. Carlo was reduced to gloom 
and silence. Laura then paused. “ Surely you have pun¬ 
ished your bride enough ?” she said; and more softly, 

“ Brother of my Giacomo! you are under an evil spell.” 

Carlo started up in anger. Bending to Vittoria, he offered 
her his hand to lead her out. They went together. 

“ A good sign,” said the countess. 

“ A bad sign !” Laura sighed. “ If he had taken me out 
for explanation! But tell me, my Agostino, are you the 
woman’s dupe ?” 

“ I have been,” Agostino admitted frankly. 

“ You did really put faith in her ?” 

“ She condescends to be so excessively charming.” 

“ You could not advance a better reason.” 

“ It is one of our best; perhaps our very best, where your 
sex is concerned, signora.” 

“ You are her dupe no more ?” 

“ No more. Oh, dear no !” 

“ You understand her now, do you ?” 

“ For the very reason, signora, that I have been her dupe. 
That is I am beginning to understand her. I am not yet in 
possession of the key.” 

“Not yet in possession!” said Laura contemptuously; 
“ but, never mind. Now for Carlo.” 

“ Now for Carlo. He declares that he never has been 
deceived by her.” 

“ He is perilously vain,” sighed the signora. 

“ Seriously ”—Agostino drew out the length of his beard 
—“ I do not suppose that he has been—boys, you know, are 
so acute. He fancies he can make her of service, and he 
shows some skill.” 

“ The skill of a fish to get into the net 1” 

“ My dearest signora, you do not allow for the times. I 
remember ”—Agostino peered upward through his eyelashes 
in a way that he had—“ I remember seeing in a meadow a 
gossamer running away with a spider-thread. It was against 
all calculation. But, observe: there were exterior agencies 


ON LAGO MAGGIOEB. 


391 


at work: a stout wind blew. The ordinary reckoning is 
based on calms.* Without the operation of disturbing ele¬ 
ments, the spider-thread would have gently detained the 
gossamer.” 

“ Is that meant for my son ?” Countess Ammiani asked 
slowly, with incredulous emphasis. 

Agostino and Laura, laughing in their hearts at the 
mother’s mysterious veneration for Carlo, had to explain 
that ‘ gossamer ’ was a poetic, generic term, to embrace the 
lighter qualities of masculine youth. 

A woman’s figure passed swiftly by the window, which led 
Laura to suppose that the couple outside had parted. She 
ran forth, calling to one of them, but they came hand in 
hand, declaring that they had seen neither woman nor man. 
“ And I am happy,” Vittoria whispered. She looked happy, 
pale though she was. 

“ It is only my dreadful longing for rest which makes me 
pale,” she said to Laura, when they were alone. “ Carlo has 
proved to me that he is wiser than I am.” 

“ A proof that you love Carlo, perhaps,” Laura rejoined, 

“ Dearest, he speaks more gently of the king.” 

“ It may be cunning, or it may be carelessness.” 

“Will nothing satisfy you, wilful sceptic? He is quite 
alive to the Countess d’lsorella’s character. He told me how 
she dazzled him once.” 

“ Hot how she has entangled him now ?” 

“ It is not true. He told me what I should like to dream 
over without talking any more to anybody. Ah, what a 
delight! to have known him, as you did, when he was a boy. 
Can one who knew him then mean harm to him ? I am not 
capable of imagining it. Ho ; he will not abandon poor 
broken Lombardy, and he is right; and it is my duty to sit 
and wait. Ho shadow shall come between us. He has said 
it, and I have said it. We have but one thing to fear, which 
is contemptible to fear; so I am at peace.” 

“ Love-sick,” was Laura’s mental comment. Yet when 
Carlo explained his position to her next day, she was milder 
in her condemnation of him, and even admitted that a man 
must be guided by such brains as he possesses. He had 
conceived that his mother had a right to claim one month 
from him at the close of the war; he said this reddening 
Laura nodded. He confessed that he was mritated when he 


392 


VITTORIA. 


met the Countess d’Isorella, with whom, to his astonishment, 
he found Barto Bizzo. She had picked him up, weak from 
a paroxysm, on the high road to Milan. “ And she tamed 
the brute,” said Carlo, in admiration of her ability; “ she 
saw that he was plot-mad^ and she set him at work on a 
stupendous plot; agents running nowhere, and scribblings 
concentering in her work-basket. You smile at me, as if I 
were a similar patient, signora. But I am my own agent. 
I have personally seen all my men in Turin and elsewhere. 
Violetta has not one grain of love for her country; but she 
can be made to serve it. As for me, I have gone too far to 
think of turning aside and drilling with Luciano. He may 
yet be diverted from Home, to strike another blow for Lom¬ 
bardy. The Chief, I know, has some religious sentiment 
about Rome. So might I liave; it is the Head of Italy. Let 
us raise the body first. And we have been beaten here. 
Great Gods ! we will have another fight for it on the same 
spot, and quickly. Besides, I cannot face Luciano and tell 
him why I was away from him in the dark hour. How can 
I tell him that I was lingering to bear a bride to the altar ? 
while he and the rest—poor fellows ! Hard enough to have 
to mention it to you, signoi-a!” 

She understood his boyish sense of shame. Making smooth 
allowances for a feeling natural to his youth and the circum¬ 
stances, she said, “ I am your sister, for you were my hus¬ 
band’s brother-in-arms. Carlo. We two sjieak heart to heart: 
I sometimes fancy you have that voice ; you hurt me with it 
more than you know ; gladden me too ! My Carlo, I wish to 
hear why Countess d’Isorella objects to your marriage.” 

“ She does not object.” 

“ An answer that begins by quibbling is not propitious. 
She opposes it.” 

“For this reason: you have not forgotten the bronze 
butterfly ?” 

“ I see more clearly,” said Laura, with a start. 

“ There appears to be no cure for the brute’s mad suspi¬ 
cion of her,” Carlo pursued: “ and he is powerful among 
the Milanese. If my darling takes my name, he can damage 
much of my influence, and—you know what there is to be 
dreaded from a fanatic.” 

Laura nodded, as if in full agreement with him, and said, 
after meditating a minute, “ What sort of a lover is this !” 
She added a little laugh to the singular interjection. 


ON LAGO MAGGIOr.E. 


393 


“ Yes, I have also thought of a secret marriage/* said 
Carlo, stung by her penetrating instinct so that he was 
enabled to read the meaning in her mind. 

“ The best way, when you are afflicted by a dilemma of 
such a character, my Carlo,” the signora looked at him, “ is 
to take a chess-table and make your moves on it. ‘ King— 
my duty ‘ queen—my passion / ‘ bishop—my social obliga¬ 
tion ‘ knight—my what-you-will and my round-the-corner 
wishes.’ Then, if you find that queen may be gratified 
without endangering king, and so forth, why, you may 
follow your inclinations; and if not, not. My Carlo, you 
are either enviably cool, or you are an enviable hypocrite.’* 

“ The matter is not quite so easily settled as that,” said 
Carlo. 

On the whole, though against her preconception, Laura 
thought him an honest lover, and not the player of a double 
game. She saw that Yittoria should have been with him in 
the critical hour of defeat, when his passions were down, and 
heaven knows what weakness of our common manhood, that 
was partly pride, partly love-craving, made his nature 
waxen to every impression ; a season, as Laura knew, when 
the mistress of a loyal lover should not withhold herself 
from him. A nature tender like Carlo’s, and he bearing an 
enamoured heart, could not, as Luciano Romara had done, 
pass instantly from defeat to drill. And vain as Carlo was 
(the vanity being most intricate and subtle, like a nervous 
fluid), he was very open to the belief that he could diplo¬ 
matize as well as fight, and lead a movement yet better than 
follow it. Even so the signora tried to read his case. 

They were all, excepting Countess Ammiani (“ who will 
never, I fear, do me this honour,” Violetta wrote, and the 
countess said, “ Never,” and quoted a proverb), about to 
pass three or four days at the villa of Countess d’Isorella. 
Before they set out, Yittoria received a portentous envelope 
containing a long scroll, that was headed “ Your Crimes,” 
and detailing a list of her offences against the country, from 
the revelation of the plot in her first letter to Wilfrid, to 
services rendered to the enemy during the war, up to the 
departure of Charles Albert out of forsaken Milan. 

“B. R.” was the undisguised signature at the end of the 
scroll. 

Things of this description restored her old war-spirit to 


394 


VITTOPJi. 


"V ittoria. She handed the scroll to Laura; Laura, in great 
alarm, passed it on to Carlo. He sent for Angelo Guida- 
scarpi in haste, for Carlo read it as an ante-dated justificatory 
document to some mischievous design, and he desired that 
hands as sure as his own, and yet more vigilant eyes, should 
keep watch over his betrothed. 


CHAPTER XXXVIIL 

VIOLETTA d’iSORELLA. 

The villa inhabited by Countess dTsorella was on the 
water’s edge, within clear view of the projecting Villa 
Ricciardi, in that darkly-wooded region of the lake which 
leads up to the Ttalian-Swiss canton. 

Violetta received here an envoy from Anna of Lenken- 
stein, direct out of Milan : an English lady, calling herself 
Mrs. Sedley, and a particular friend of Countess Anna. At 
the first glance Violetta saw that her visitor had the pre¬ 
tension to match her arts against hei own; so, to sound her 
thoroughly, she offered her the hospitalities of the villa for 
a day or more. The invitation was accepted. Much to 
Violetta’s astonishment, the lady betrayed no anxiety to 
state the exact terms of her mission: she appeared, on the 
contrary, to have an unbounded satisfaction m the society 
of her hostess, and prattled of herself and Antonio-Pericles, 
and her old affection for Vittoria, with the wileiest sim¬ 
plicity, only requiring to be assured at times that she spoke 
intelligible Italian and exquisite French. Violetta supposed 
her to feel that she commanded the situation. Patient study 
of this woman revealed to Violetta the amazing fact that 
she was dealing with a born bourgeoise, who, not devoid of 
petty acuteness, was unaffectedly enjoying her noble Small¬ 
talk, and the prospect of a footing in Italian high society. 
Violetta smiled at the comedy she had been playing in, 
scarcely reproaching herself for not having imagined it. 
She proceeded to the point of business without further 
delay. 



VIOLETTA D’iSOEELLA. 


395 


Adela Sedley liad notliins;* but a verbal message to deliver. 
The Countess Anna of Lenkenstein offered, on her word of 
honour as a noblewoman, to make over the quarter of her 
estate and patrimony to the Countess d’Isorella, if the latter 
should succeed in thwarting—something. 

Forced to speak plainly, Adela confessed she thought she 
knew the nature of that something. 

To preclude its being named, Violetta then diverged from 
the subject. 

“We will go round to your friend the signor Antonio- 
Pericles at Villa Eicciardi,” she said. “ You will see that 
he treats me familiarly, but he is not a lover of mine. I 
suspect your ‘ something ’ has something to do with the 
Jesuits.” 

Adela Sedley replied to the penultimate sentence: “ It 
would not surprise me, indeed, to hear of any number of 
adorers.” 

“ I have the usual retinue, possibly,” said Violetta. 

“ Dear countess, I could be one of them myself!” Adela 
burst out with tentative boldness. 

“ Then, kiss me.” 

And behold, they interchanged that nnsweet feminine 
performance. 

Adela’s lips were unlocked by it. 

“ How many wouid envy me, dear Countess dTsorella!” 

She really conceived that she was driving into Violetta’s 
heart by the great high road of feminine vanity. Violetta 
permitted her to think as she liked. 

“ Your countrywomen, madame, do not make large allow¬ 
ances for beauty, I hear.” 

“Hone at all. But they are so stiff! so frigid! I know 
one, a Miss Ford, now in Italy, who would not let me have 
a male friend, and a character, in conjunction.” 

“ You are acquainted with Count Karl Lenkenstein ?” 

Adela blushingly acknowledged it. 

“ The whisper goes that I was once admired by him,” said 
Violetta. 

“ And by Count Ammiani.” 

“ By count ? by milord ? by prince ? by king ?’* 

' By all who have good taste.” 

“ Was it jealousy, then, that made Countess Anna hate 
me ?” 


396 


ViTTOrjA. 


“ She could not—or she cannot now.” 

“ Because I have not taken possession of her brother.” 

“ I could not—may I say it ?—I could not understand his 
infatuation until Countess Anna showed me the portrait of 
Italy’s most beautiful living woman. She told me to look 
at the last of the Borgia family.” 

Violetta laughed out clear music. “ And now you see 
her?” 

“ She said that it had saved her brother’s life. It has a star 
and a scratch on the left cheek from a dagger. He wore 
it on his heart, and an assassin struck him there : a true 
romance. Countess Anna said to me that it had saved one 
brother, and that it should help to avenge the other. She 
has not spoken to me of Jesuits.” 

“ Nothing at all of the Jesuits ?” said Violetta carelessly. 

“ Perhaps she wishes to use my endeavours to get the 
Salasco armistice prolonged, and tempts me, knowing I am 
a prodigal. Austria is victorious, you know, but she wants 
peace. Is that the case ? I do not press you to answer.” 

Adela replied hesitatingly : “ Are you aware, countess, 
whether there is any truth in the report that Countess Lena 
has a passion for Count Ammiani ?” 

“ Ah, then,” said Violetta, “ Countess Lena’s sister would 
naturally wish to prevent his contemplated marriage ! We 
may have read the riddle at last. Are you discreet ? If 
you are, you will let it be known that I had the honour of 
becoming intimate with you in Turin—say, at the Court. 
We shall meet frequently there during winter, I trust, if 
you care to make a comparison of the Italian with the 
Austrian and the English nobility.” 

An eloquent “ Oh !” escaped from Adela’s bosom. She 
had certainly not expected to win her way with this 
estimable Italian titled lady'thus rapidly. Violetta had 
managed her so well that she was no longer sure whether 
she did know the exact nature of her mission, the words of 
which she had faithfully transmitted as having been alone 
confided to her. It was with chagrin that she saw Pericles 
put his forefinger on a salient dimple of the countess’s 
cheek when he welcomed them. He puffed and blew like 
one working simultaneously at bugle and big drum on hear¬ 
ing an allusion to Vittoria. The mention of the name of 
that abominable traitress was interdicted at Villa Ric- 


VIOLETTA d’iSORELLA. 


397 


ciardi, he said; she had dragged him at two armies’ tails to 
find his right senses at last: Pericles was cured of his 
passion for her at last. He had been mad, but he was 
cured—and so forth, in the old strain. His preparations 
for a private operatic performance diverted him from these 
fierce incriminations, and he tripped busily from spot to 
spot, conducting the ladies over the tumbled lower floors of 
the spacious villa, and calling their admiration on the 
desolation of the scene. Then they went up to the maestro’s 
room. Pericles became deeply considerate for the master’s 
privacy. “ He is my slave ; the man has ruined himself 
for la Vittoria ; but I respect the impersonation of art,” he 
said under his breath to the ladies as they stood at the 
door; “ hark !” The piano was touched, and the voice of 
Irma di Karski broke out in a shrill crescendo. Rocco 
Picci within gave tongue to the vehement'damnatory dance 
of Pericles outside. Rocco struck his piano again encourag¬ 
ingly for a second attempt, but Irma was sobbing. She 
was heard to say: “ This is the fifteenth time you have 
pulled me down in one morning. You hate me; you do ; 
you hate me.” Rocco ran his fingers across the keys, and 
again struck the octave for Irma. Pericles wiped his fore¬ 
head, when, impenitent and unteachable, she took the notes 
in the manner of a cock. He thumped at the door violently 
and entered. 

“ Excellent! horrid ! brava ! abominable ! beautiful! My 
Irma, you have reached the skies. You ascend like a fire¬ 
work, and crown yourself at the top. Ho more to-day; but 
descend at your leisure, my dear, and we will try to mount 
again by-and-by, and not so fast, if you please. Ha ! your 
voice is a racehorse. You will learn to ride him with 
temper and judgement, and you will go. Hot so, my Rocco? 
Irma, you want repose, my dear. One thing I guarantee to 
you—you will please the public. It is a minor thing that 
you should please me.” 

Countess dHsorella led Irma away, and had to bear with 
many fits of weeping, and to assent to the force of all the 
charges of vindictive conspiracy and inveterate malice with 
which the jealous creature assailed Vittoria’s name. The 
countess then claimed her ear for half-a-minute. 

“ Have you had any news of Countess Anna lately ?” 

Irma had not; she admitted it despondently. “ There is 


398 


VITTORIA. 


such a vile conspiracy against me in Italy—and Italy is a 
poor singer’s fame—that I should be tempted to do any¬ 
thing. And I detest la Vittoria. She has such a hold on 
this Antonio-Pericles, I don’t see how I can hurt her, unless 
I meet her and fly at her throat.” 

“ You naturally detest her,” said the countess. “ Ivepeat 
Countess Anna’s proposition to you.” 

‘ It was insulting—she offered me money.” 

“ That you should persuade me to assist you in preventing 
la Vittoria’s marriage to Count Ammiani ?” 

“ Dear lady, you know I did not try to persuade you.” 

You knew that you would not succeed, my Irma. But 
Count Ammiani will not marry her; so you wdll have a right 
to claim some reward. I do not think that la \ ittoria is 
quite idle. Look out for 3^ourself, my child. If 3"ou take to 
plotting, remember it is a game of two.” 

“ If she thwarts me in one single step, I will let loose 
that madman on her,” said Irma, trembling. 

“ You mean the signor Antoiiio-Pericles ?” 

“ hTo ; I mean that furious man I saw at your villa, dear 
countess.” 

“ Ah ! Barto Bizzo. A very furious man. He bellowed 
W’hen he heard her name, I remember. You must not do it. 
But, for Count Ammiani’s sake, I desire to see his marriage 
postponed, at least.” 

“ Where is she ?” Irma inquired. 

The countess shrugged. “ Even though I knew, I could 
not prudently tell you in your present excited state.” 

She went to Pericles for a loan of money. Pericles 
remarked that there w^as not much of it in Turin. “ But, 
countess, you w’hirl the gold-pieces like dust from your 
wheels ; and a spy, mj^ good soul, a lovely secret emissary, 
she will be getting underpaid if she allows herself to want 
money. There is your beauty ; it is ripe, but it is fresh, 
and it is extraordinary. Yes; there is your beauty.” Before 
she could obtain a promise of the money, Violetta had to 
submit to be stripped to her character, wdiich w'as hard; but 
on the other hand, Pericles exacted no interest on his money, 
and it was not often that he exacted a return of it in coin. 
Under these circumstances, ladies in need of money can 
find it in their hearts to pardon mere- brutality of phrase. 
Pericles promised to send it to the countess on one condi- 


VIOLETTA d’iSORELLA. 


399 


tion; ■which condition he cancelled, saying dejectedly, ‘‘ I 
do not care to know where she is. I will not know.” 

“ She has the score of Ilagar, wherever she is,” said 
Violetta, “ and when she hears that you have done the scena 
without her aid, you will have stuck a dagger in her 
bosom.” 

“ Not,” Pericles cried in despair, “not if she should hear 
Irma’s Hagar I To the desert with Irma. It is the place 
for a crab-apple. Bravo, Abraham ! jmu were wise.” 

Pericles added that Montini was hourly expected, and that 
there was to be a rehearsal in the evening. 

When she had driven home, Violetta found Barto Rizzo’s 
accusatory paper laid on her writing-desk. She gathered 
the contents in a careless glance, and walked into the garden 
alone, to look for Carlo. 

He was leaning on the balustrade of the terrace, near the 
water-gate, looking into the deep clear lake-water. Violetta 
placed herself beside him without a greeting. 

“You are watching fish tor coolness, my Carlo 

“ Yes,” he said, and did not turn to her face. 

“ You were very angry when you arrived F” 

She waited for his reply. 

“ Why do you not speak, Carlino ?” 

“I am watching fish for coolness,” he said. 

“ Meantime,” said Violetta, “ I am scorched.” 

He looked up, and led her to an arch of shade, where he 
sat quite silent. 

“ Can anything be more vexing than this ?” she, was 
reduced to exclaim. 

“ Ah !” said he, “ you would like the catalogue to be 
written out for you in a big bold hand, possibly, with a 
terrific initials at the end of the page.” 

“ Carlo, you have done worse than that. When I saw 
you first here, what crimes did you not accuse me of ? what 
names did you not scatter on my head ? and what things 
,.did I not confess to ? I bore the unkindness, for you were 
beaten, and you wanted a victim. And, my dear friend, 
considering that I am after all a woman, my forbearance has 
subsequently been still greater.” 

“ How ? ” he asked. Her half-pathetic candour melted 
him. 

“ You must have a lively memory for the uses of forget* 


400 


VITTOKIA. 


fulness, Carlo. Wlien you had scourged me well, you 
thought it proper to raise me up and give me comfort. I 
was wicked for serving the king, and therefore the country, 
as a spy ; but I was to persevere, and cancel my iniquities 
by betraying those whom I served to you. That was your 
instructive precept. Have I done it or not ? Answer, too— 
have I done it for any payment beyond your approbation ? 

I persuaded you to hope for Lombardy, and without any 
vaunting of my own patriotism. You have seen and spoken 
to the men I directed you to visit. If their heads master 
yours, I shall be reprobated for it, I know surely ; but I am 
confident as yet that you can match them. In another 
month I expect to see the king over the Ticino once more, 
and Carlo in Brescia with his comrades. You try to pene¬ 
trate my eyes. That’s foolish ; 1 can make them glass. 
Read me by what I say and what I do. I do not entreat 
you to trust me; I merely beg that you will trust your own 
judgement of me by what I have helped you to do hitherto. 
You and I, my dear boy, have had some trifling together. 
Admit that another woman would have refused to surrender 
you as I did when your unruly Vittoria was at last induced 
to come to you from Milan. Or, another woman would have 
had her revenge on discovering that she had been a puppet 
of soft eyes and a lover’s quarrel with his mistress. Instead 
of which, I let you go. I am opposed to the marriage, it’s 
true ; and you know wh3^” 

Carlo had listened to Violetta, measuring the false and 
the true in this recapitulation of her conduct with cool 
accuracy until she alluded to their personal relations. 
Thereat his brows darkened. 

“We had ‘ some trifling together,’ ” he said, musingly. 

“ Is it going to be denied in these sweeter days ?” Vio¬ 
letta reddened. 

“ The phrase is elastic. Suppose my bride were to hear it ? ” 

“ It was addressed to your ears. Carlo.” 

“ It cuts two ways. Will you tell me when it was that I 
last had the happiness of saluting you, lip to lip ?” 

“In Brescia—before I had espoused an imbecile—two 
nights before my marriage—near the fountain of the Greek 
girl with a pitcher.” 

Pride and anger nerved the reply. It was uttered in 
a rapid low breath. Coming altogether unexpectedly, it 


VIOLETTA D’iSORELLA. 


401 


created an intense momentary revulsion of his feelings by 
conjuring up his boyish love in a scene more living than the 
sunlight. 

He lifted her hand to his mouth. He was Italian enough, 
though a lover, to feel that she deserved more. She had 
reddened deliciously, and therewith hung a dewy rosy 
moisture on her underlids. Raising her eyes, she looked 
like a out orange to a thirsty lip. He kissed her, saying, 
“ Pardon.” 

'‘Keep it secret, you mean?” she retorted. “Yes, I 
pardon that wish of yours. I can pardon much to my 
beauty.” 

She stood up as majestically as she had spoken. 

“ You know, my Violetta, that I am madly in love.*' 

“ I have learnt it.” 

“ You know it;—what else w'ould . . . ? If I were not 
lost in love, could I see you as I do and let Brescia be the 
final chapter?” 

Violelta sighed. “ I should have preferred its being so 
rather than this superfluous additional line to announce an 
end, like a foolish staff on the edge of a cliff. You thought 
that you were saluting a leper, or a saint ?” 

“Keither. If ever we can talk together again, as we have 
done,” Carlo said gloomily, “ I will tell you what I think of 
myself.” 

“ Ko, but Richelieu might have behaved .... Ah! per¬ 
haps not quite in the same way,” she corrected her flowing 
apology for him. “ But then, he was a Frenchman, tie 
could be flighty without losing his head. Dear Italian 
Carlo ! Yes, in the teeth of Barto Rizzo, and for the sake of 
the country, marry her at once. It will be the best thing 
for you; really the best. You want to know from me the 
w'hereabout of* Barto Rizzo. He may be in the mountain 
over Stresa, or in Milan. He also has thrown off my yoke, 
such as it was ! I do assure you. Carlo, I have no command 
over him : but, mind, I half doat on the wretch. Ho man 
made me desperately in love with myself before he saw me, 
when I stopped his raving in the middle of the road with 
one look of my face. There was foam on his beard and 
round his eyes; the poor wretch took out his handkerchief, 
and he sobbed. I don’t know how many luckless creatures 
he had killed on his -way; but when I took him into my car- 

2 D 


402 


VITTOEIA. 


riage—king, emperor, orator on stilts, minister of police— 
not one has flattered me as he did, by just gazing at me. 
Beauty can do as much as music, my Carlo.” 

Carlo thanked heaven that Violetta had no passion in her 
nature. She had none: merely a leading toward evil, a 
light sense of shame, a desire for money, and in her heart a 
contempt for the principles she did not possess, but which, 
apart from the intervention of other influences, could occa¬ 
sionally sway her actions. Friendship, or rather the shadowy 
recovery of a past attachment that had been more than 
friendship, inclined her now and then to serve a master who 
failed distinctly to represent her interests; and when she 
met Carlo after the close of the war, she had really set to 
work in hearty kindliness to rescue him from what she 
termed “ shipv/reck with that disastrous Itepublican crew.” 
He had obtained greater ascendency over her than she liked ; 
yet she would have forgiven it, as well as her consequent 
slight deviation from direct allegiance to her masters in 
various cities, but for Carlo’s commanding personal coolness. 
She who had tamed a madman by her beauty, was out¬ 
raged, and not unnaturally, by the indifFerence of a former 
lover. 

Later in the day, Laura and Vittoria, with Agostino, 
reached the villa; and Adela put her lips to Vittoria’s ear, 
whispering: “Naughty! when are you to lose your liberty 
to turn men’s heads ?” and then she heaved a sigh with 
Wilfrid’s name. She had formed the acquaintance of 
Countess d’Isorella in Turin, she said, and satisfactorily 
repeated her lesson, but with a blush. She was little more 
than a shade to Vittoria, who wondered what she had to live 
for. After the early evening dinner, when sunlight and the 
colours of the sun were beyond the western mountains, they 
pushed out on the lake. A moon was overhead, seeming to 
drop lower on them as she filled with light. 

Agostino and Vittoria fell upon their theme of discord, as 
usual—the King of Sardinia. 

“We near the vesper hour, my daughter,” said Agostino; 
“ you would provoke me to argumentation in heaven itself. 
I am for peace. 1 remember looking down on two cats with 
arched backs in the solitary arena of the Verona amphi¬ 
theatre. We men, my Carlo, will not, in the decay of time, 
BO conduct ourselves.” 


VIOLETTA d’iSORELLA. 


403 


Vittoria looked on Laura and thought of the cannon¬ 
sounding hours, whose echoes rolled over their slaughtered 
hope. The sun fell, the moon shone, and the sun would rise 
again, but Italy lay face to earth. They had seen her 
together before the enemy. That recollection was a joy that 
stood, though the winds beat at it, and the toiTents. She 
loved her friend’s worn eyelids and softly-shut mouth ;— 
the after-glow of battle seemed on them; the silence of the 
field of carnage under heaven;—and the patient turning of 
Laura’s eyes this way and that to speakers upon common 
things, covered the despair of her heart as with a soldier’s 
cloak. 

Laura met the tender study of Yittoria’s look, and smiled. 

They neared the villa Ricciardi, and heard singing. The 
villa was lighted profusely, so that it made a little mock- 
sunset on the lake. 

“Irma!” said Vittoria, astonished at the ring of a well- 
known voice that shot up in firework fashion, as Pericles had 
said of it. Incredulous, she listened till she was sure; and 
then glanced hurried questions at all eyes. Violetta laughed, 
saying “ You have the score of Rocco Ricci’s Hagar.’* 

The boat drew under the blazing windows, and half jess¬ 
ing, half hearing, Vittoria understood that Pericles was giving 
an entertainment here, and had abjured her. She was not 
insensible to the slight. This feeling, joined to hei* long 
unsatisfied craving to sing, led her to be intolerant of Irma’s 
style, and visibly vexed her. 

Violetta whispered: “He declares that your voice is 
cracked : show him 1 Burst out with the ‘ Addio ’ of Hagar. 
May she not. Carlo ? Don’t you permit the poor soul to 
sing ? She cannot contain herself.” 

Carlo, Adela, Agostino, and Violetta prompted her, and, 
catching a pause in the villa, she sang the opening notes of 
Hagar’s “ Addio ” with her old glorious fulness of tone and 
perfect utterance. 

The first who called her name was Rocco Ricci, but Peri¬ 
cles was the first to rush out and hg-ug over the boat. “ Witch I 
traitress ! infernal ghost I heart of ice 1” and in English 
“ humbug!” and in French “ coquine !” :—these were a few 
of the titles he poured on her. Rocco Ricci and Montini 
kissed hands to her, begging her to come to them. She was 
very willing outwardly, and in her heart most eager; hut 


404 


VITTOEIA. 


Carlo bade the rowers push off. Then it was pitiful to hear 
the shout of abject supplication from Pericles. He implored 
Count Ammiani’s pardon, Vittoria’s pardon, for telling her 
what she was ; and as the boat drew farther away, he offered 
her sums of money to enter the villa and sing the score of 
Ilagar; sums of money to every form of assistance. He 
offered to bear the blame of her bad behaviour to him, said 
he would forget it and stamp it out; that he would pay for 
the provisioning of a regiment of volunteers for a whole 
month; that he would present her marriage trousseau to 
her—yea, and let her marry. “ Sandra ! my dear! my dear!’* 
he cried, and stretched over the parapet speechless, like a 
puppet slain. 

So strongly did she comprehend the sincerity of his passion 
for her voice that she could or would see nothing extravagant 
in this demonstration which excited unrestrained laughter in 
every key from her companions in the boat. When the boat 
was about a hundred yards from the shore, and in full moon¬ 
light, she sang the great “ Addio ” of Hagar. At the close 
of it, she had to feel for her lover’s hand blindly. Ho one 
spoke, either at the Villa Ricciardi, or about her. Her voice 
possessed the mountain-shadowed lake. 

The rowers pulled lustily home through chill air. 

Luigi and Beppo were at the villa, both charged with news 
from Milan. Beppo claiming the right to speak first, which 
Luigi granted with a magnificent sweep of his hand, related 
that Captain Weisspriess, of the garrison, had wounded 
Count Medole in a duel severely. He brought a letter to 
Vittoria from Merthyr, in which Merthyr urged her to 
prevent Count Ammiani’s visiting Milan for any purpose 
whatever, and said that he was coming to be present at her 
marriage. She was reading this while Luigi delivered his 
burden ; which was that, in a subsequent duel, the slaughter¬ 
ing captain had killed little Leone Bufo, the gay and gallant 
boy. Carlo’s comrade, and her friend. 

Luigi laughed scornfully at his rival, and had edged away 
out of sight before he could be asked who had sent him. 
Beppo ignominiously confessed that he had not heard of this 
second duel. At midnight he was on horseback, bound for 
Milan, with a challenge to the captain from Carlo, who had a 
jealous fear that Luciano at Yercelli might have outstripped 
him. Carlo requested the captain to guarantee him an hour’s 


VIOLETTA d’iSORELLA. 


405 


immunity in the city on a stated day, or to name any spot 
on the borders of Piedmont for the meeting. The challenge 
was sent with Countess Ammiani’s approbation and Laura’s. 
Vittoria submitted. 

That done, Carlo gave up his heart to his bride. A fight 
in prospect was the hope of wholesome work after his late 
indecision and double play. They laughed at themselves, 
accused hotly, and humbly excused themselves, praying for 
mutual pardon. 

She had behaved badly in disobeying his mandate from 
Brescia. 

Yes, but had he not been over-imperious ? 

True ; still she should have remembered her promise in 
the Vicentino. 

She did indeed; but how could she quit her wounded friend 
Merthyr ? 

Perhaps not: then, why had she sent word to him from 
Milan that she would be at Pallanza ? 

This question knocked at a sealed chamber. She was 
silent, and Carlo had to brood over something as well. He 
gave her hints of his foolish pique, his wrath and bitter 
baffled desire for her when, coming to Pallanza, he came to 
an empty house. But he could not help her to see, for he 
did not himself feel, that he had been spurred by silly 
passions, pique, and wrath, to plunge instantly into new 
political intrigue; and that some of his worst faults had 
become mixed up with his devotion to his country. Had he 
taken Violetta for an ally in all purity of heart ? The kiss 
he had laid on the woman’s sweet lips had shaken his abso¬ 
lute belief in that. He tried to set his brain travelling 
backward, in order to contemplate accurately the point of 
his original weakness. It being almost too severe a task 
for any young head. Carlo deemed it sufficient that he 
should say—and this he felt—that he was unworthy of his 
beloved. Could Vittoria listen to such stuff ? She might 
have kissed him to stop the flow of it, but kissings were 
rare between them ; so rare that, when they had put mouth 
to mouth, a little quivering spire of flame, dim at the base, 
stood to mark the spot in their memories. She moved her 
hand, as to throw aside such talk. Unfretful in blood, 
chaste and keen, she at least knew the foolishness of the 
common form of lovers’ trifling when there is a burning leva 


406 


VITTORIA. 


to keep tinder, and Carlo saw that she did, and adored her 
for this highest proof of the passion of her love. 

“ In three days you will be mine, if I do not hear from 
Milan ? within five, if I do ? ” he said. 

Vittoria gave him the whole beauty of her face a divine 
minute, and bowed it assenting. Carlo then led her to his 
mother, before whom he embraced her for the comfort of his 
mother’s heart. They decided that there should be no 
whisper of the marriage until the couple were one. Vittoria 
obtained the countess’s permission to write for Merthyr to 
attend her at the altar. She had seen Weisspriess fall in 
combat, and she had perfect faith in her lover’s right hand. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN. 

Captain "Weisspriess replied to Carlo Ammiani promptly, 
naming Camerlata by Como, as the place where he would 
meet him. 

He stated at the end of some temperate formal lines, that 
he had given Count Ammiani the preference over half-a- * 
dozen competitors for the honour of measuring swords with 
him; but that his adversary must not expect him to be 
always ready to instruct the young gentlemen of the Lom¬ 
bardo-Venetian province in the arts of fence; and therefore 
he begged to observe that his encounter with Count 
Ammiani would be the last occasion upon which he should 
hold himself bound to accept a challenge from Count 
Ammiani’s countrymen. 

It was quite possible, the captain said, drawing a familiar 
illustration from the gaming-table, to break the stoutest 
Bank in the world by a perpetual multiplication of your bets, 
and he was modest enough to remember that he was but one 
man against some thousands, to contend with all of whom 
Would be exhausting. 

Consequently the captain desired Count Ammiani to pro¬ 
claim to his countrymen that the series of challenges must 



ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN. 407 

terminate; and he requested him to advertize the same in a 
Milanese, a Turin, and a Neapolitan journal. 

“I am not a butcher,” he concluded. “ The task you 
inflict upon me is scarcely bearable. Call it by what name 
you will, it is having ten shots to one, which was generally 
considered an equivalent to murder. My sword is due to 
you, Count Ammiani; and, as I know you to be an honour¬ 
able nobleman, I would rather you were fighting in Venice, 
though your cause is hopeless, than standing up to match 
yourself against me. Let me add that I deeply respect the 
lady who is engaged to be united to you, and would not 
willingly cross steel either with her lover or her husband. 
I shall be at Camerlata at the time appointed. If I do not 
find you there I shall understand that you have done me the 
honour to take my humble advice, and have gone where 
your courage may at least appear to have done better service. 
I shall sheath my sword and say no more about it.” 

All of this, save the concluding paragraph, was written 
under the eyes of Countess Anna of Lenkenstein. 

He carried it to his quarters, where he appended the—as 
he deemed it—conciliatory passage: after which he handed 
it to Beppo, in a square of the barracks, with a buon’mano 
that Beppo received bowing, and tossed to an old decorated 
regimental dog of many wounds and a veteran’s gravity. 
Tor this offence a Styrian grenadier seized him by the 
shoulders, lifting him off his feet and swinging him easily, 
while the dog arose from his contemplation of the coin and 
sw^ayed an expectant tail. The Styrian had dashed Beppo 
to earth before Weisspriess could interpose, and the dog had 
got him by the throat. In the struggle Beppo tore off the 
dog’s medal for distinguished conduct on the field of battle. 
He restored it as soon as he was free, and won unanimous 
plaudits from officers and soldiers for his kindly thoughtful¬ 
ness and the pretty manner with which he dropped on one 
knee, and assuaged the growls, and attached the medal to 
the old dog’s neck. Weisspriess walked away. Beppo then 
challenged his Styrian to fight. Tbe case was laid before a 
couple of sergeants, who shook their heads on hearing his 
condition to be that of a serving-man. The Styrian was 
ready to waive considerations of superiority; but the judges 
pronounced their veto. A soldier in the Imperial Royal 
service, though he was merely a private in the ranks, could 


408 


VITTORIA. 


not accept a challenge from civilians below the rank of 
notary, secretary, hotel- or inn-keeper, and such-like : 
servants and tradesmen he must seek to punish in some 
other way; and they also had their appeal to his command¬ 
ing officer. So went the decision of the military tribunal, 
until the Styrian, having contrived to make Beppo under¬ 
stand, by the agency of a single Italian verb, that he wanted 
a blow, Beppo spun about and delivered a stinging smack on 
the Styrian’s cheek; which altered the view of the case, for, 
under peculiar circumstances—supposing that he did not 
choose to cut him down—a soldier anight condescend to 
challenge his civilian inferiors : in our regiment,” said the 
sergeants, meaning that they had relaxed the stringency of 
their laws. 

Beppo met his Styrian outside the city walls, and laid 
him flat. He declined to flght a second ; but it was repre¬ 
sented to him, by the aid of an interpreter, that the officers 
of the garrison were subjected to successive challenges, and 
that the flrst trial of his skill might have been nothing finer 
than luck; and besides, his adversary had a right to call a 
champion. “ We all do it,” the soldiers assured him. “ Now 
you’re blood’s up you’re ready for a dozen of us which was 
less true of a constitution that was quicker in expending its 
heat. He stood out against a young fellow almost as limber 
as himself, much taller, and longer in the reach, by whom 
he was quickly disabled with cuts on thigh and head. See¬ 
ing this easy victory over him, the soldiers, previously quite 
civil, cursed him for having got the better of their fallen 
comrade, and went off discussing how he had done the trick, 
leaving him to lie there. A peasant carried him to a small 
suburban inn, where he remained several days oppressed 
horribly by a sense that he had forgotten something. When 
he recollected what it was, he entrusted the captain’s letter 
to his landlady;—a good woman, but she chanced to have a 
scamp of a husband, who snatched it from her and took it to 
his market. Beppo supposed the letter to be on its way to 
Pallanza, when it was in General Schoneck’s official desk; 
and soon after the breath of a scandalous rumour began to 
circulate. 

Captain Wiesspriess had gone down to Camerlata, accom¬ 
panied by a Colonel Volpo, of an Austro-Ttalian regiment, 
and by Lieutenant Jenna. At Camerlata a spectacled officer, 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN. 


409 


M<ajor l^agen, joined them. Wiesspriess was the less pleased 
with his company on hearing that he had come to witness 
the meeting, in obedience to an express command of a person 
who was interested in it. Jenna was the captain’s friend: 
Yolpo was seconding him for the purpose of getting Count 
Ammiani to listen to reason from the mouth of a country¬ 
man. There could be no doubt in the captain’s mind that 
this Major Wagen was Countess Anna’s spy as well as his 
rival, and he tried to be rid of him; but in addition to the 
shortness of sight which was Nagen’s plea for pushing his 
thin transparent nose into every corner, he enjoyed at will 
an intermittent deafness, and could hear anything without 
knowing of it. Brother officers said of Major Nagen that 
he was occasionally equally senseless in the nose, which had 
been tweaked without disturbing the repose of his features. 
He waited half-an-hour on the ground after the appointed 
time, and then hurried to Milan. Wiesspriess waited an 
hour. Satisfied that Count Ammiani was not coming, he 
•exacted from Yolpo and from Jenna their word of honour as 
Austrian officers that they would forbear to cast any slur on 
the courage of his adversary, and would be so discreet on 
the subject as to imply that the duel was a drawn affair. 
They pledged themselves accordingly. “ There’s Hagen, it’s 
true,” said Weisspriess, as a man will say and feel that he 
has done his best to prevent a thing inevitable. 

Milan, and some of the journals of Milan, soon had Carlo 
Ammiani’s name up for challenging Weisspriess and failing 
to keep his 'appointment. It grew to be discussed as a tre¬ 
mendous event. The captain received fifteen challenges 
within two days ; among these a second one from Luciano 
Ilomara, whom he was beginning to have a strong desire to 
encounter. He repressed it, as quondam drunkards fight off 
the whisper of their lips for liquor. “ Ho more blood,” was 
his constant inward cry. He wanted peace ; but as he also 
wanted Countess Anna of Lenkenstein and her estates, it 
may possibly be remarked of him that what he wanted he 
did not want to pay for. 

At this period Wilfrid had resumed the Austrian uniform 
as a common soldier in the ranks of the Kinsky regiment. 
General Schoneck had obtained the privilege for him from 
the Marshal, General Pierson refusing to lift a finger on his 
behalf, nevertheless the uncle was not sorry to hear the 


410 


VITTORIA. 


tale of his nephew’s exploits during the campaign, or of the 
eccentric intrepidity of the white umbrella ; and both to 
please him, and to intercede for Wilfrid, the latter’s old 
comrades recited his deeds as a part of the treasured familiar 
history of the army in its late arduous struggle. 

General Pierson was chiefly anxious to know whether 
Countess Lena would be willing to give her hand to Wilfrid 
in the event of his restoration to his antecedent position in 
the army. He found her extremely excited about Carlo 
Ammiani, her old playmate, and once her dear friend. She 
would not speak of Wilfrid at all. To appease the chivalrous 
little woman, General Pierson hinted that his nephew, being 
under the protection of General Schoneck, might get some 
intelligence from that officer. Lena pretended to reject the 
notion of her coming into communication with Wilfrid for 
any earthly purpose. She said to herself, however, that her 
object was pre-eminently unselfish; and as the General 
pointedly refused to serve her in a matter that concerned an 
Italian nobleman, she sent directions to Wilfrid to go before 
General Schoneck the moment he was off duty, and ask his 
assistance, in her name, to elucidate the mystery of Count 
Ammiani’s behaviour. The answer was a transmission of 
Captain Weisspriess’s letter to Carlo. Lena caused the fact 
of this letter having missed its way to be circulated in the 
journals, and then she carried it triumphantly to her sister, 
saying: 

“ There ! I knew these reports were a base calumny.” 

“ Reports, to what effect ?” said Anna. 

“ That Carlo Ammiani had slunk from a combat with your 
duellist.” 

“ Oh ! I knew that myself,” Anna remarked. 

“ You were the loudest in proclaiming it.” 

“ Because I intend to ruin him.” 

“ Carlo Ammiani ? What has he done to you ?” 

Anna’s eyes had fallen on the additional lines of the letter 
which she had not dictated. She frowned and exclaimed; 

“ What is this ? Does the man play me false.? Read 
those lines, Lena, and tell me, does the man mean to fight in 
earnest who can dare to Avrite them ? He advises Ammiani 
to go to Venice. It’s treason, if it is not cowardice. And 
see here—he has the audacity to say that he deeply respects 


AXNA OP LENKENSTEIN. 411 

the lady Ammiani is going to marry. Is Ammiani going to 
marry her ? I think not.” 

Anna dashed the letter to the floor. 

“ But I will make use of what’s within my reach,” she 
said, picking it up. 

“ Carlo Ammiani will marry her, I presume,” said Lena. 

“ Not before he has met Captain Weisspriess, who, by the 
way, has obtained his majority. And, Lena, my dear, write 
to inform him that we wish to offer him our congratulations. 
He will be a General officer in good time.” 

“ Perhaps you forget that Count Ammiani is a perfect 
swordsman, Anna.” 

“ Weisspriess remembers it for me, perhaps ;—is that your 
idea, Lena ?” 

“ He might do so profitably. You have thrown him on 
two swords.” 

“ Merely to provoke the third. He is invincible. If he 
were not, where would his use be ?” 

“ Oh, how I loathe revenge!” cried Lena. 

“ You cannot love!” her sister retorted. “ That woman 
calling hersf^lf Yittoria Campa shall suffer. She has injured 
and defied me. How was it that she behaved to us at 
Meran ? She is mixed up with assassins ; she is insolent—a 
dark-minded slut; and she catches stupid men. My brother, 
my country, and this weak Weisspriess, as I saw him lying 
in the Ultenthal, cry out against her. I have no sleep. I 
am not revengeful. Say it, say it, all of you ! but I am not. 
I am not unforgiving. I worship justice, and a black deed 
haunts me. Let the wicked be contrite and wasted in tears, 
and I think I can pardon them. But I will have them on 
their knees. I hate that woman Yittoria more than I hate 
Angelo Guidascarpi. Look, Lena. If both were begging for 
life to me, I would send him to the gallows and her to her 
bedchamber; and all because I worship justice, and believe 
it to be the weapon of the good and pious. You have a 
baby’s heart; so has Karl. He declines to second Weiss¬ 
priess ; he will have nothing to do with duelling ; he would 
behold his sisters mocked in the streets, and pass on. He 
talks of Paul’s death like a priest. Priests are worthy men; 
a great resource ! Give me a priest’s lap when I need it. 
Shall I be condemned to go to the priest and leave that 
woman singing ? If 1 did, I might well say the world’s a 


412 


VITTORIA. 


snare, a sliam, a pitfall, a horror! It’s what I don’t think 
in any degree. It’s what you think, though. Yes, whenever 
you are vexed you think it. So do the priests, and so do all 
who will not exert themselves to chastise. I, on the con¬ 
trary, know that the world is not made up of nonsense. 
Write to Weisspriess immediately; I must have him here in 
an hour.” 

Weisspriess, on visiting the ladies to receive their con¬ 
gratulations, was unprepared for the sight of his letter to 
Carlo Ammiani, which Anna thrust before him after he had 
saluted her, bidding him read it aloud. He perused it in 
silence. He was beginning to be afraid of his mistress. 

“ I called you Austria once, for you were always ready,” 
Anna said, and withdrew from him, that the sting of her 
words might take effect. 

“ God knows, I have endeavoured to earn the title in my 
humble way,” Weisspriess appealed to Lena. 

“Yes, Major Weisspriess, you have,” she said. “Be 
Austria still, and forbear toward these people as much as 
you can. To beat them is enough in my mind. I am re¬ 
joiced that you have not met Count Ammiani, for if you had, 
two friends of mine, equally dear and equally skilful, would 
have held their lives at one another’s mercy.” 

“ Equally!” said Weisspriess, and pulled out the length of 
his moustache. 

“ Equally courageous,” Lena corrected herself. “ I never 
distrusted Count Ammiani’s courage, nor could distrust 
yours.” 

“ Equally dear !” Weisspriess tried to direct a concentrated 
gaze on her. 

Lena evaded an answer by speaking of the rumour of 
Count Ammiani’s marriage. 

Weisspriess was thinking with all the sagacious penetra¬ 
tion of the military mind that perhaps this sister was trying 
to tell him that she would be willing to usurp the place of 
tlie other in his affections; and if so, why should she 
not ? 

“ I may cherish the idea that I am dear to you. Countess 
Lena ?” 

“ When you are formally betrothed to my sister, you will 
know you are very dear to me. Major Weisspriess.” 

“ But,” said he, perceiving his error, “ how many persons 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN. 


413 


am I to call out before she will consfut to a formal 
betrothal ?” 

Lena was half smiling at the little tentative bit of senti¬ 
ment she had so easily turned aside. Her advice to him 
was to refuse to fight, seeing that he had done sufficient for 
glory and his good name. 

He mentioned Major Nagen as a rival. 

Upon this she said : “ Hear me one minute. I was in my 
sister’s bedroom on the first night when she knew of your 
lying wounded in the Ultenthal. She told you just'now that 
she called you Austria. She adores our Austria in you. 
The thought that you had been vanquished seemed like our 
Austria vanquished, and she is so strong for Austria that it 
is really out of her power to fancy you as defeated without 
suspecting foul play. So when she makes yo'U fight, she 
thinks you safe. Many are to go down because you have 
gone down. Do you not see ? And now. Major Weisspriess, 
I need not expose my sister to you any nlore, I hope, or 
depreciate Major Nagen for your satisfaction.” 

Weisspriess had no other interview with Anna for several 
days. She shunned him openly. Her carriage moved off 
when he advanced to meet her at the parade, or review of 
arms; and she did not scruple to speak in public with Major 
Uagen, in the manner of those who have begun to speak 
together in private. The offender received his punishment 
gracefully, as men will who have been taught that it flatters 
them. He refused every challenge. From Carlo Ammiani 
there came not a word. 

It would have been a deadly lull to any fiery temperament 
engaged in plotting to destroy a victim, but Anna had the 
patience of hatred—that absolute malignity which can mea¬ 
sure its exultation rather by the gathering of its power to 
harm than by striking. She could lay it aside, or sink it to 
the bottom of her emotions, at will, when circumstances ap¬ 
peared against it. And she could do this without fretful 
regrets, without looking to the future. The spirit of her 
hatred extracted its own nourishment from things, like an 
organized creature. When foiled she became passive, and 
she enjoyed—forced herself compliantly to enjoy—her re¬ 
doubled energy of hatred voluptuously, if ever a turn in 
events made wreck of her scheming. She hated Vittoria for 
many reasons, all of them vague within her bosom because 


414 


VITTORTA. 


the source of them was indefinite and lay in the fact of her 
having come into collision with an opposing nature, whose 
rivalry was no visible rivalry, whose triumph was an ignor¬ 
ance of scorn—a woman who attracted all men, who scattered 
injuries with insolent artlessness, who never appealed to 
forgiveness, and was a low-born woman daring to be proud. 
By repute Anna was implacable, but she had, and knew she 
had, the capacity for magnanimity of a certain kind; and 
her knowledge of the existence of this unsuspected fund 
within her, justified in some degree her reckless efforts to 
pull her enemy down on her knees. It seemed doubly right 
that she should force Vittoria to penitence, as being good 
for the woman, and an end that exonerated her own private 
sins committed to effect it. Yet she did not look clearly 
forward to the day of Vittoria’s imploring for mercy. She 
had too many vexations to endure : she was an insufficient 
schemer, and was too frequently thwarted to enjoy that 
ulterior prospect. Her only servile instruments were Major 
Nagen, and Irma, who came to her from the Villa Bicciardi, 
hot to do her rival any deadly injury; but though willing to 
attempt much, these were apparently able to perform little 
more than the menial work of vengeance. Major Hagen wrote 
in the name of Weisspriess to Count Ammiani, appointing 
a second meeting at Como, and stating that he would be 
at the villa of the Duchess of Graatli there. Weisspriess 
was unsuspectingly taken down to the place by Anna and 
Lena. There was a gathering of such guests as the duchess 
alone among her countrywomen could assemble, under the 
patronage of the conciliatory Government, and the duchess 
projected to give a series of brilliant entertainments in the 
saloons of the Union, as she named her house-roof. Count 
Serabiglione arrived, as did numerous Moderates and priest- 
party men, Milanese garrison officers and others. Laura 
Piaveni travelled with Countess dTsorella and the happy 
Adela Sedley, from Lago Maggiore. Laura came, as she 
cruelly told her friend, for the purpose of making Yittoria’s 
excuses to the duchess. “ Why can she not not come her¬ 
self Amalia persisted in asking, and began to be afflicted 
with womanly curiosity. Laura would do nothing but shrug 
and smile, and repeat her message. A little after sunset, 
when the saloons were lighted, Weisspriess, sitting by his 
Countess Anna’s side, had a slip of paper placed in his hands 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN. 


415 


bj one of the domestics. He quitted his post frowning with 
astonishment, and muttered once, “ My appointment!” 
Laura noticed that Anna’s heavy eyelids lifted to shoot an 
expressive glance at Violetta d’Isorella. She said: “ Can 
that have been anything hostile, do you suppose ?” and 
glanced slyly at her friend. 

“No, no,” said Amalia; “the misunderstanding is ex¬ 
plained, and Major Weisspriess is just as ready as Count 
Ammiani to listen to reason. Besides, Count Ammiani is 
not so unfriendly but that if he came so near he would come 
up to me, surely.” 

Laura brought Amalia’s observation to bear upon Anna 
and Violetta by turning pointedly from one to the other as 
she said: “ As for reason, perhaps you have chosen the 
word. If Count Ammiani attended an appointment this 
time, he would be unreasonable.” 

A startled “ Why ?” leaped from Anna’s lips. She red¬ 
dened at her impulsive clumsiness. 

Laura raised her shoulders slightly : “ Do you not know?” 
The expression of her face reproved Violetta, as for remiss¬ 
ness in transmitting secret intelligence. “ You can answer 
why, countess,” she addressed the latter, eager to exercise 
her native love of conflict with this doubtfully-faithful 
countrywoman ;—the Austrian could feel that she had beaten 
her on the essential point, and afford to give her any number 
of dialectical victories. 

“ I really cannot answer why,” Violetta said; “ unless 
Count Ammiani is, as I venture to hope, better employed.” 

“ But the answer is charming and perfect,” said 
Laura. 

“ Enigmatical answers are declared to be so when they 
come from us women,” the duchess remarked; “ but then, I 
fancy, women must not be the hearers, or they will confess 
that they are just as much bewildered and irritated as I am. 
Do speak out, my dearest. How is he better employed ?” 

Laura passed her eyes around the group of ladies. “ If 
any hero of yours had won the woman he loves, he would be 
right in thinking it folly to be bound by the invitation to 
fight, or feast, or what you will, within a space of three 
months or so; do you not agree with me ?” « 

The different emotions on many visages made the scene 
curious. 


416 


VITTORIA 


“ Count Ammiani has married her!” exclaimed the 
duchess. 

“ My old friend Carlo is really married!” said Lena. 

Anna stared at Violetta. 

The duchess, recovering from her wonder, confirmed the 
news by saying that she now knew why M. Powys had left 
Milan in haste, three or four days previously, as she was 
aware that the bride had always wished him to be preseut 
at the ceremony of her marriage. 

“ Signora, may I ask you, were you present ?” Violetta 
addressed Laura. 

“ I will answer most honestly that I was not,” said Laura. 

“ The marriage was a secret one, perhaps ?” 

“ Even for friends, you see.” 

“ Necessarily, no doubt,” Lena said, with an idea of easing 
• her sister’s stupefaction by a sarcasm foreign to her senti¬ 
ments. 

Adela Sedley, later in exactly comprehending what had 
been spoken, glanced about for some one who would not be 
unsympathetic to her exclamation, and suddenly beheld her 
brother entering the room with Weisspriess. “Wilfrid! 
Wilfrid ! do you know she is married ?” . 

“ So they tell me,” Wilfrid replied, while making his 
bow to the duchess. He was much broken in appearance, 
but wore his usual collected manner. Who had told him 
of the marriage ? A person downstairs, he said; 'iiot Count 
Ammiani; not Signor Balderini; no one whom he saw pre¬ 
sent, no one whom he knew. 

“ A very mysterious person,” said the duchess. 

“ Then it’s true after all,” cried Laura. “ I did but guess 
it.” She assured Violetta that she had only guessed it. 

“Does Major Weisspriess know it to be true?” The 
question came from Anna. 

Weisspriess coolly verified it, on the faith of a common 
servant’s communication. 

The ladies could see that some fresh piece of mystery lay 
between him and Wilfrid. 

“With whom have you had an interview, and what have 
you heard ?” asked Lena, vexed by Wilfrid’s pallid cheeks. 

Both men, stammered and protested, out of conceit, and 
were as foolish as men are when pushed to play at mutual 
concealment. 


ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN. 


417 


The duchess’s chasseur, Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz, 
stepped up to his mistress and whispered discreetly. She 
gazed straight at Laura. After hesitation she shook her 
head, and the chasseur retired. Amalia then came to the 
rescue of the unhappy military wits that were standing a 
cross-fire of sturdy interrogation. 

“Do you not perceive what it is?” she said to Anna. 

“ Major Weisspriess meets Private Pierson at the door of 
my house, and forgets that he is 'well-born and my guest. 

I may be revolutionary, but I declare that in plain clothes 
Private Pierson is the equal of Major Weisspriess. If 
bravery made men equals, who would be Herr Pierson’s 
superior ? He has done me the honour, at a sacrifice of his 
pride, I am sure, to come here and meet his sister, and 
rejoice me with his society. Major Weisspriess, if I under¬ 
stand the case correctly, you are greatly to blame.” 

“I beg to assert,” Weisspriess was saying as the duchess 
turned her shoulder on him. 

“ There is really no foundation,” Wilfrid began, with 
similar simplicity. 

“ What will sharpen the wits of these soldiers!” the 
duchess murmured dolefully to Laura. 

“But Major Weisspriess was called out of his room by a 
message—was that from Private Pierson ?” said Anna. 

“ Assuredly; I should presume so,” the duchess answered 
for them. 

“Ay; undoubtedly,” Weisspriess supported her. 

“ Then,” Laura smiled encouragement to Wilfrid, “ you . 
know nothing of Count Ammiani’s marriage after all ?” 

Wilfrid launched his reply on a sharp repression of his 
breath, “Nothing whatever.” 

“ And the common servant’s communication was not made 
to you ?” Anna interrogated Weisspriess. 

“ I simply followed in the track of Pierson,” said that 
officer, masking his retreat from the position with a duck of 
his head and a smile, tooth on lip. 

“ How could you ever suppose, child, that a common 
servant would be sent to deliver such tidings ? and to 
Major Weisspriess !” the duchess interposed. 

This broke up the Court of inquiry. 

Weisspriess shortly after took his leave, on the plea that 
he wished to prove his friendliness by accomp^-nying Private 

2 E 


418 


VITTORIA. 


Pierson, who had to be on duty early next day in Milan. 
Amalia had seen him breaking from Anna in extreme 
irritation, and he had only to pledge his word that he was 
really bound for Milan to satisfy her. “ I believe you to be 
at heart humane,” she said meaningly. 

“ Duchess, you may be sure that I would not kill an 
enemy save on the point of my sword,” he answered her. 

“ You are a gallant man,” said Amalia, and pride was in 
her face as she looked on him. 

She willingly consented to Wilfrid’s sudden departure, as 
it was evident that some shot had hit him hard. 

On turning to Laura, the duchess beheld an aspect of such 
shrewd disgust that she was provoked to exclaim : “ What 
on earth is the matter now ?” 

Laura would favour her with no explanation until they 
were alone in the duchess’s boudoir, when she said that to 
call Weisspriess a gallant man was an instance of unblushing 
adulation of brutal strength: “ Gallant for slaying a boy ? 
Gallant because he has force of wrist ?” 

“Yes; gallant;—an honour to his countrymen: and an 
example to some of yours,” Amalia rejoined. 

“ See,” cried Laura, “to what a degeneracy your excess of 
national sentiment reduces you !” 

While she was flowing on, the duchess leaned a hand 
across her shoulder, and smiling kindly, said she would not 
allow her to utter words that she would have to eat. “ You 
saw my chasseur step up to me this evening, my Laura ? 
Well, not to torment you, he wished to sound an alarm cry 
after Angelo Guidascarpi. I believe my conjecture is cor¬ 
rect, that Angelo Guidascarpi was seen by Major Weisspriess 
below, and allowed to pass free. Have you no remark to 
make ?” 

“ None,” said Laura. 

“ You cannot admit that he behaved like a gallant man ?” 

Laura sighed deeply. “ Perhaps it was well for you to 
encourage hini!” 

The mystery of Angelo’s interview with Weisspriess was 
cleared the next night, when in the midst of a ball-room’s 
din, Aennchen, Amalia’s favourite maid, brought a letter to 
Laura from Countess Ammiani. These were the con¬ 
tents :— 


ANNA OP LENKENSTEIN. 


41Jj 


“ Dearest Signora, 

“You now learn a new and blessed thing. God 
make the marriage fruitful! I have daughter as well as 
son. Our Carlo still hesitated, for hearing of the disgrace¬ 
ful rumours in Milan, he fancied a duty lay there for him to 
do. Another menace came to my daughter from the mad¬ 
man Barto Rizzo. God can use madmen to bring about the 
heavenly designs. We decided that Carlo’s name should 
cover her. My son was like a man who has awakened up. 
M. Powys was our good genius. He told her that he had 
promised you to bring it about. He, and Angelo, and 
myself, were the witnesses. So much before heaven! I 
crossed the lake with them to Stresa. I was her tirewoman, 
with Giacinta, to whom I will give a husband for the tears 
of joy she dropped upon the bed. Blessed be it! I placed 
my daughter in my Carlo’s arms. Both kissed their mother 
at parting. 

“ This is something fixed. I had great fears during the 
w^ar. You do not yet know what it is to have a sonless son 
in peril. Terror and remorse haunted me for having sent 
the last Ammiani out to those fields, unattached to posterity. 

“An envelope from Milan arrived on the morning of his 
nuptials. It was intercepted by me. The German made a 
second appointment at Como. Angelo undertook to assist 
me in saving my son’s honour. So my Carlo had nothing to 
disturb his day. Pray with me, Laura Piaveni, that the 
day and the night of it may prove fresh springs of a river 
that shall pass our name through the happier mornings 
of Italy! I commend you to God, :^i>y dear, and am your 
friend, 

“ Marcellina, Countess Ammiani. 

“ P.S. Countess Alessandra will be my daughter’s name.” 

The letter was read and re-read before the sweeter burden 
it contained would allow Laura to understand that Countess 
Ammiani had violated a seal and kept a second hostile 
appointment hidden from her son. 

“ Amalia, you detest me,” she said, when they had left the 
guests for a short space, and the duchess had perused the 
letter, “ but acknowledge Angelo Guidascarpi’s devotion. 
He came here in the midst of you Germans, at the risk of 
his life, to offer battle for his cousin.” 

2 E 2 


420 


VITTORIA. 


The duchess, however, had much more to say for the mag¬ 
nanimity of Major Weisspriess, who, if he saw him, had 
spared him; she compelled Laura to confess that Weiss¬ 
priess must have behaved with some nobleness, which Laura 
did, humming and ‘ brumming,’ and hinting at the experience 
he had gained of Angelo’s skill. Her naughtiness provoked 
first, and then affected Amalia; in this mood the duchess 
had the habit of putting on a grand air of pitying sadness. 
Laura knew it well, and never could make head against it. 
She wavered, as a stray floating thing detached from an eddy 
whirls and passes on the flood. Close on Amalia’s bosom she 
sobbed out: “Yes; you Austrians have good qualities— 
some : many! but you choose to think us mean because we 
can’t readily admit them when we are under your heels. 
Just see me; what a crumb feeds me ! I am crying wdth 
delight at a marriage !” 

The duchess clasped her fondly. 

“ It’s not often one gets you so humble, my Laura.’* 

“ I am crying Avith delight at a marriage ! Amalia, look 
at me : you would suppose it a mighty triumph. A mar¬ 
riage !—two little lovers lying cheek to cheek! and me 
blessing heaven for its goodness ! and there may be dead 
men unburied still on the accursed Custozza hill-top !” 

Amalia let her weep. The soft affection which the 
duchess bore to her was informed with a slight touch of 
envy of a complexion that could be torn with tears one 
minute, and the next be fit to show in public. Ho other 
thing made her regard her friend as a southern—that is, a 
foreign—Avoman. 

“Be patient,” Laura said. 

“ Cry ; you need not be restrained,” said Amalia. 

“You sighed.” 

“ Ho! ” 

“ A sort of sigh. My fit’s over. Carlo’s marriage is too 
surprising and delicious. I shall be laughing presently. I 
hinted at his marriage—I thought it among the list of 
possible things, no more—to see if that crystal pool, called 
Violetta d’Isorella, could be discoloured by stirring. Did 
you Avatch her face ? I don’t know A\diat she AA^anted Avith 
Carlo, for she’s cold as poison—a female trifler; one of those 
women AvLom I, and I have a chaste body, despise as worse 
than wantons; but she certainly did not want him to be 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 


421 


married. It seems like a victory—thougli we’re beaten. 
You have beaten ns, my dear!” 

“ My darling I it is your husband kisses you,” said 
Amalia, kissing Laura’s forehead from a full heart. 


CHAPTER XL. 

THROUGH THE WINTER, 

Wetsspriess and Wilfrid made their way toward Milan 
together, silently smoking, after one attempt at conversa¬ 
tion, which touched on Yittoria’s marriage ; but when they 
reached Monza the officer slapped his degraded brother-in- 
ai*ms upon the shoulder, and asked him whether he had any 
inclination to crave permission to serve in Hungary. For 
his own part, Weisspriess said that he should quit Italy at 
once; he had here to skewer the poor devils, one or two 
weekly, or to play the mightily generous ; in short, to do 
things unsoldierly; and he was desirous of getting away 
from the country. General Schbneck was at Monza, and 
might arrange the matter for them both. Promotion was to 
be looked for in Hungary; the application would please the 
General; one battle would restore the lieutenant’s star to 
AVilfrid’s collar. AYilfiid, who had been offended by his 
companion’s previous brooding silence, nodded briefly, and 
they stopped at Monza, where they saw General Schoneck 
in the morning, and Wilfrid being by extraordinary favour 
in civilian’s dress during his leave of absence, they were 
jointly invited to the General’s table at noon, though not to 
meet any other officer. General Schoneck agreed with 
AYeisspriess that Flungary would be a better field for 
AYilfrid ; said he would do his utmost to serve them in the 
manner they wished, and dismissed them after the second 
cigar. They strolled about the city, glad for reasons of 
their own to be out of Milan as long as the leave permitted. 
At night, when they w^ere passing a palace in one of the 
dark streets, a feather, accompanied by a sharp sibilation 
from above, dropped on AYilfrid’s face. AYeisspriess held 
the feather up, and judged by its length that it was an 



422 


VITTORIA. 


eagle’s, and therefore belonging to the Hungarian Hnssar 
regiment stationed in Milan. “ The bird’s aloft,” he 
remarked. His voice aroused a noise of feet that was 
instantly still. He sent a glance at the doorways, where he 
thought he discerned men. Fetching a whistle in with his 
breath, he unsheathed his sword, and seeing that Wilfrid 
had no weapon, he pushed him to a gate of the palace-court 
that had just cautiously turned a hinge. Wilfrid found his 
hand taken by a woman’s hand inside. The gate closed 
behind him. He was led up to an apartment where, by the 
light of a darkly-veiled lamp, he beheld a young Hungarian 
officer and a lady clinging to his neck, praying him not to 
go forth. Her Italian speech revealed how matters stood in 
this house. The officer accosted Wilfrid ; “ But you are not 
one of us ! ” He repeated it to the lady: “You see, the man 
is not one of us ! ” 

She assured him that she had seen the uniform when she 
dropped the feather, and wept protesting it. 

“ Louis, Louis! why did you come to-night! why did I 
make you come! You will be slain. I had my warning, 
but I was mad.” 

The officer hushed her with a quick squeeze of her inter¬ 
twisted fingers. 

“ Are you the man to take a sword and be at my back, 
sir ?” he said; and resumed in a manner less contemptuous 
toward the civil costume: “ I request it for the sole purpose 
of quieting this lady’s fears.” 

Wilfrid explained who and what he was. On hearing 
that he was General Pierson’s nephew the officer laughed 
cheerfully, and lifted the veil from the lamp, by which 
Wilfrid knew him to be Colonel Prince Badocky, a most 
gallant and the handsomest cavalier in the Imperial service. 
Badocky laughed again when he was told of Weisspriess 
keeping guard below. 

“ Aha ! we are three, and can fight like a pyramid.” 

He flourished his hand above the lady’s head, and called 
for a sword. The lady affected to search for one while he 
stalked up and down in the jaunty fashion of a Magyar 
horseman; but the sword was not to be discovered without 
his assistance, and he was led away in search of it. The 
moment he was alone Wilfrid burst into tears. He could 
bear anything better than the sight of fondling lovers. 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 


423 


When they rejoined him, Radocky had evidently yielded 
some point; he stammered and worked his under-lip on his 
moustache. The lady undertook to speak for him. Happily 
for her, she said, Wilfrid would not compromise her; and 
taking her lover’s hand, she added with Italian mixture of 
wit and grace :— 

“ Happily for me, too, he does. The house is surrounded 
by enemies ; it is a reign of terror for women. I am dead, 
if they slay him; hut if they recognize him, I am lost.” 

Wilfrid readily leaped to her conclusion. He offered his 
opera-hat and civil mantle to Rado('ky, who departed in 
them, leaving his military cloak in exchange. During 
breathless seconds the lady hung kneeling at the window. 
When the gate opened there was a noise as of feet preparing 
to rush ; Weisspriess uttered an astonished cry, but addressed 
Radocky as “my Pierson !” lustily and frequently; and was 
heard putting a number of meaningless questions, laughing 
and rallying Pierson till the two passed out of hearing 
unmolested. The lady then kissed a Cross passionately, 
and shivered Wilfrid’s manhood by asking him whether he 
knew what love was. She went on: 

“Hever, never love a married woman ! It’s a past prac¬ 
tice. Hever! Thrust a spike in the palm of your hand, 
drink scalding oil, rather than do that.” 

“ The Prince Radocky is now safe,” Wilfrid said. 

“ Tes, he is safe; and he is there, and I am here: and 1 
cannot follow him ; and when will he come to me ?” 

The tones were lamentable. She struck her forehead, 
after she had mutely thrust her hand to right and left to 
show the space separating her from her lover. 

Her voice changed when she accepted Wilfrid’s adieux, 
to whose fate in the deadly street she appeared quite in¬ 
different, though she gave him one or two prudent directions, 
and expressed a hope that she might be of service to him. 

He was set upon as soon as he emerged from the gateway; 
the cavalry cloak was torn from his back, and but for the 
chance circumstance of his swearing in English, he would 
have come to harm. A chill went through his blood on 
hearing one of his assailants speak the name of Barto Rizzo. 
The English oath stopped an arm that flashed a dagger half 
its length. Wilfrid obeyed a command to declare his name, 
his country, and his rank. “ It’s not the prince! it’s not the 


424 


VITTORIA. 


Hungarian !” went many whispers ; and he was drawn away 
by a man who requested him to deliver his reasons for enter¬ 
ing the palace, and who appeared satisfied by Wilfrid’s ready 
mixture of invention and fact. But the cloak ! Wilfrid 
stated boldly that the cloak was taken by him from the 
Duchess of Graatli’s at Como; that he had seen a tall Hussar 
officer slip it off his shoulders ; that he had wanted a cloak, 
and had appropriated it. He had entered the gate of the 
palace because of a woman’s hand that plucked at the skirts 
of this very cloak. 

“ I saw you enter,” said the man ; “ do that no more. We 
will not have the blood of Italy contaminated—do you hear ? 
While that half-Austrian Medole is tip-toeing ’twixt Milan 
and Turin, we watch over his honour, to set an example to 
our women and your officers. You have outwitted us to¬ 
night. Off with you!” 

AVilfrid was twirled and pushed through the crowd till he 
got free of them. He understood very well that they w^ere 
magnanimous rascals who could let an accomplice go, though 
they would have driven steel into the principal. 

Nothing came of this adventure for some time. Wilfrid’s 
reflections (apart from the horrible hard truth of Vittoria’s 
marriage, against Tyhich he dashed his heart perpetually, 
almost asking for anguish) had leisure to examine the singu¬ 
larity of his feeling a commencement of pride in the clasping 
of his musket;—he who on the first day of his degradation 
had planned schemes to stick the bayonet-point between his 
breast-bones : he thought as well of the queer woman’s way 
in Countess Medole’s adjuration to him that he should never 
love a married woman ;—in her speaking, as it seemed, on 
his behalf, when it wms but an outcry of her own acute 
wound. Did he love a married woman ? He wanted to see 
one married woman for the last time ; to throw a frightful 
look on her ; to be sublime in scorn of her ; perhaps to love 
her all the better for the cruel pain, in the expectation of 
being consoled. While doing duty as a military machine, 
these were the pictures in his mind ; and so well did his 
routine drudgery enable him to'bfar them, that when he 
heard from General Schoneck that the term of his degrada¬ 
tion was to continue in Italy, and from his sister that General 
Pierson refused to speak of him or hear of him until he had 
regained his gold shoulder-strap, he revolted her with an 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 


425 


ejaculation of gladness, and swore brutally that he desired 
to have no advancement; nothing but sleep and drill; and, 
he added conscientiously, Havannah cigars. “ He has grown 
to be like a common soldier,” Adela said to herself with an 
amazed contemplation of the family tie. Still, she worked 
on his behalf, having, as every woman has, too strong an 
instinct as to what is natural to us to believe completely in 
any eccentric assertion. She carried the tale of his grief and 
trials and his romantic devotion to the Imperial flag, daily 
to Countess Lena; persisting, though she could not win a 
responsive look from Lena’s face. 

One day on the review-ground, Wilfrid beheld Prince 
Radocky bending from his saddle in conversation with Weiss- 
priess. The prince galloped up to Ceneral Pierson, and 
stretched his hand to where Wilfrid was posted as marker to 
a wheeling column, kept the hand stretched out, and spoke 
furiously, and followed the General till he was ordered to 
head his regiment. Wilfrid began to hug his musket less 
desperately. Little presents—feminine he knew by the per¬ 
fumes floating round them—gloves and cigars, flne handker¬ 
chiefs, and silks for wear, came to his barracks. He pretended 
to accuse his sister of sending them. She in honest delight 
accused Lena. Lena then accused herself of not having 
done so. 

It was winter: Vittoria had been seen in Milan. Both 
Lena and Wilfrid spontaneously guessed her to be the guilty 
one. He made a funeral pyre of the gifts and gave his sister 
the ashes, supposing that she had guessed with the same 
spirited intuition. It suited Adela to relate this lover’s per¬ 
formance to Lena. “ He did well!” Lena said, and kissed 
Adela for the first time. Adela was the bearer of friendly 
messages to the poor private in the ranks. From her and 
from little Jenna, Wilfrid heard that he was unforgotten by 
Countess Lena, and new hopes mingled with gratitude caused 
him to regard his situation seriously. He confessed to his 
sister that the filthy fellows, his comrades, were all but too 
much for him, and asked her to kiss him, that he might feel 
he was not one of them. But he would not send a message 
in reply to Lena. “ That is also well!” Lena said. Her 
brother Karl was a favourite with General Pierson. She 
proposed that Adela and herself should go to Count Karl, 
and urge him to use his influence with the General. This 


42(3 


VITTORIA. 


however, Adela was disinclined to do 5 she could not appa« 
rently say why. When Lena went to him, she was astonished 
to hear that he knew every stage of her advance up to the 
point of pardoning her erratic lover ; and even knew as much 
as that Wilfrid’s dejected countenance on the night when 
Vittoria’s marriage was published in the saloon of the 
duchess on Lake Como, had given her fresh offence. Ho 
told her that many powerful advocates were doing their best 
for the down-fallen officer, who, if he were shot, or killed, 
would still be gazetted an officer. “A nice comfort!” said 
Lena, and there was a rallying exchange of banter between 
them, out of which she drew the curious discovery that Karl 
had one of his strong admirations for the English lady. 
“ Surely 1” she said to herself ; “ I thought they were all so 
cold.” And cold enough the English lady seemed when Lena 
led to the theme. “ Do I admire your brother. Countess 
Lena ? Oh I yes ;—in his uniform exceedingly.” 

Milan was now full. Wilfrid had heard from Adela 
that Count Ammiani and his bride were in the city and 
were strictly watched. Why did not conspirators like 
these two take advantage of the amnesty ? Why were they 
not in Rome ? Their Chief was in Rome; their friends 
were in Rome. Why wmre they here ? A report, coming 
from Countess d’Isorella, said that they had quarrelled with 
their friends, and were living for love alone. As she visited 
the Lenkensteins—high Austrians—some believed her ; and 
as Count Ammiani and his bride had visited the Duchess of 
Graiitli, it was thought possible. Adela had refused to see 
Vittoria ; she did not even know the house where Count 
Ammiani dwelt; so Wilfrid was reduced te find it for him¬ 
self. Every hour when off duty the miserable senti¬ 
mentalist wandered in that direction, nursing the pangs of 
a delicious tragedy of emotions ; he was like a drunkard 
going to his draught. As soon as he had reached the head 
of the Corso, he wheeled and marched away from it with .a 
lofty head, internally grinning at his abject folly, and mar¬ 
velling at the stiff figure of an Austrian common soldier 
which flashed by the windows as he passed. He who can 
unite prudence and madness, sagacity and stupidity, is the 
true buffoon; nor, vindictive as were his sensations, was 
Wilfi’id unaware of the contrast of Vittoria’s soul to his 
own, that was now made up of antics. He could not endure 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 427 

the tones of cathedral music; hut he had at times to kneel 
and listen to it, and be overcome. 

On a night in the month of February, a servant out of 
livery addressed him at the barrack-gates, requesting him 
to go at once to a certain hotel, where his sister was staying. 
He went, and found there, not his sister, but Countess 
Medole. She smiled at his confusion. Both she and the 
prince, she said, had spared no effort to get him reinstated 
in his rank; but his uncle continually opposed the endea¬ 
vours of all his friends to serve him. This interview was 
dictated by the prince’s wish, so that he might know them 
to be a not ungrateful couple. Wilfrid’s embarrassment in 
standing before a lady in private soldier’s uniform, enabled 
him with very peculiar dignity to declare that his present 
degradation, from the General’s point of view, was a just 
punishment, and he did not crave to have it abated. She 
remarked that it must end soon. He made a dim allusion 
to the littleness of humanity. She laughed. “ It’s the 
language of an unfortunate lover,” she said, and straightway, 
in some undistinguished sentence, brought the name of 
Countess Alessandra Ammiani tingling to his ears. She 
feared that she could not be of service to him there; “ at 
least, not just yet,” the lady astonished him by remarking. 
“ I might help you to see her. If you take my advice you 
will wait patiently. You know us well enough to under¬ 
stand what patience will do. She is supposed to have 
married for love. Whether she did or not, you must allow 
•a young married woman two years’ grace.” 

The effect of speech like this, and more in a similar strain 
of frank corruptness, was to cleanse Wilfrid’s mind, and 
nerve his heart, and he denied that he had any desire to 
meet the Countess Ammiani, unless he could perform a 
service that would be agreeable to her. 

The lady shrugged. “ Well, that is one way. She has 
enemies, of course.” 

Wilfrid begged for their names. 

“ Who are they not ?” she replied. “ Chiefly women, it 
is true.” 

He begged most earnestly for their names; he would 
have pleaded eloquently, but dreaded that the intonation of 
one in his low garb might be taken for a whine ; yet he 
ventured to say that if the countess did imagine herself 


428 


VITTOEIA. 


indebted to bim in a small degree, the mention of two or 
three of the names of Countess Alessandra Ammiani’s 
enemies would satisfy him. 

“ Countess Lena yon Lenkenstein, Countess Violetta 
d’Isorella, Signorina Irma di Karski.” 

She spoke the names out like a sum that she was paying 
down in gold pieces, and immediately rang the bell for her 
servant and carriage, as if she had now acquitted her debt. 
Wilfrid bowed himself forth. A resolution of the best kind, 
quite unconnected with his interests or his love, urged him 
on straight to the house of the Lenkensteins, where he sent 
up his name to Countess Lena. After a delay of many 
minutes, Count Lenkenstein accompanied by General Pierson 
came down, both evidently affecting not to see him. The 
General barely acknowledged his salute. 

“ Hey! Kinsky !” The count turned in the doorway to 
address him by the title of his regiment; “ here ; show me 
the house inhabited by the Countess d’lsorella during the 
revolt.” 

Wilfrid followed them to the end of the street, pointing 
his finger to the house, and saluted. 

“ An Englishman did me the favour—from pure eccen¬ 
tricity, of course—to save my life on that exact spot. 
General,” said the count. “ Your countrymen usually take 
the other side ; therefore I mention it.” 

As Wilfrid was directing his steps to barracks (the little 
stir to his pride superinduced by these remarks having 
demoralized him). Count Lenkenstein shouted: “Are you* 
off duty ?” Wilfrid had nearly replied that he was, but just 
mastered himself in time. “ Ho, indeed!” said the count, 

“ when you have sent up your name to a lady.” This time 
General Pierson put two fingers formally to his cap, and 
smiled grimly at the private’s rigid figure of attention. If 
Wilfrid’s form of pride had consented to let him take delight 
in the fact, he would have seen at once that prosperity was 
ready to shine on him. He nursed the vexations much too 
tenderly to give prosperity a welcome ; and even when alone 
with Lena, and convinced of her attachment, and glad of it, 
he persisted in driving at the subject which had brought him 
to her house; so that the veil of opening commonplaces, 
pleasant to a couple in their position, was plucked aside. 
His business was to ask her why she was the enemy of 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 


429 


Countess Alessandra Ammiani, and to entreat her that she 
should not seek to harm that lady. He put it in a set 
speech. Lena felt that it ought to have come last, not in 
advance of their reconciliation. “ I will answer you,” she 
said. “ I am not the Countess Alessandra Ammiani’a 
enemy.’.’ 

He asked her: “ Could you be her friend ?” 

“ Does a woman who has a husband want a friend ?” 

“ I could reply, countess, in the case of a man who has a 
bride.” 

By dint of a sweet suggestion here and there, love-making 
crossed the topic. It appeared that Gleneral Pierson had 
finally been attacked, on the question of his resistance to 
every endeavour to restore Wilfrid to his rank, by Count 
Lenkenstein, and had barely spoken the words—that if Wil¬ 
frid came to Countess Lena of his own free-will, unprompted, 
to beg her forgiveness, he would help to reinstate him, when 
Wilfrid’s name was brought up by the chasseur. All had 
laughed, “ even I,” Lena confessed. And then the couple 
had a pleasant pettish wrangle;—he was requested to avow 
that he had come solely, or principally, to beg forgiveness 
of her, who had such heaps to forgive. Ho; on his honour, 
he had come for the purpose previously stated, and on the 
spur of his hearing that she was Countess Alessandra 
Ammiani’s deadly enemy. “ Could you believe that I was ?” 
said Lena; “ why should I be ?” and he coloured like a lad, 
which sign of an ingenuousness supposed to belong to her 
sex, made Lena bold to take the upper hand. She frankly 
accused herself of jealousy, though she did not say of whom. 
She almost admitted that when the time for reflection came, 
she should rejoice at his having sought her to plead for his 
friend rather than for her forgiveness. In the end, but with 
a drooping pause of her bright swift look at Wilfrid, she 
promised to assist him in defeating any machinations against 
Vittoria’s happiness, and to keep him informed of Countess 
d’Isorella’s movements. Wilfrid noticed the withdrawing 
fire of the look. “ By heaven ! she doubts me still,” he 
ejaculated inwardly. 

These half-comic little people have their place in the his¬ 
tory of higher natures and darker destinies. Wilfrid met 
Pericles, from whom he heard that Vittoria, with her hus¬ 
band’s consent, had pledged herself to sing publicly. “ It is 


430 


VITTORIA. 


for ze Lombard widows,” Pericles apologized on her behalf; 

“ but, do you see, I onnly want a beginning. She thaerst 
for ze stage; and it is, after marriage, a good sign. Oh ! 
you shall hear, my friend; marriage have done her no hurt 
—ze contrary ! You shall hear Hymen—Cupids—not a cold 
machine ; it is an organ alaif ! She has privily sung, to her 
Pericles, and ser, and if I wake not very late on Judgement- 
Day, I shall zen hear—but why should I talk poetry to you, 
to make you laugh ? T have a divin’ passion for zat w'oman. 
Do I not give her to a husband, and say. Be happy! onnly 
sing! Be kissed! be hugged! onnly give Pericles your 
voice. By Saint Alexandre! it is to say to ze heavens, 
Move on your way, so long as you drop rain on us—you 
smile—you look kin'd.” 

Pericles accompanied him into a caffe, the picture of an 
enamoured happy man. He waived aside contemptuously 
all mention of Yittoria’s having enemies. She had them 
when, as a virgin, she had no sense. As a W'oman, she had 
none, for she now had sense. Had she not brought her hus¬ 
band to be sensible, so that they moved together in Milanese 
society, instead of stupidly fighting at Rome ? so that what 
he could not take to himself—the marvellous voice—he let 
bless the multitude ! “ She is the Beethoven of singers,” 

Pericles concluded. Wilfrid thought so on the night when 
she sang to succour the Lombard widows. It was at a con¬ 
cert, richly thronged ; ostentatiously thronged with Austrian 
uniforms. He fancied that he could not bear to look on her. 
He left the house thinking that to hear her and see her and feel 
that she was one upon the earth, made life less of a burden. 

This evening was rendered remarkable by a man’s calling 
out, “ You are a traitress !” while Yittoria stood before 
the seats. She became pale, and her eyelids closed. No 
thinness was subsequently heard in her voice. The man 
was caught as he strove to burst through the crowd at the 
entrance-door, and proved to be a petty bookseller of 
Milan, by name Sarpo, known as an orderly citizen. When 
taken he was inflamed with liquor. Next day the man was 
handed from the civil to the military authorities, he having 
confessed to the existence of a plot in the city. Pericles 
came fuming to Wilfrid’s quarters. Wilfrid gathered from 
him that Sarpo’s general confession had been retracted ; it 
was too foolish to snare the credulity of Austiian official s 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 


431 


Sarpo stated that he had fabricated the story of a pJot, in 
order to escape the persecutions of a terrible man, and find 
safety in prison lodginj^s under Government. The short con¬ 
finement for a civic offence was not his idea of safety; he 
desired to be sheltered by Austrian soldiers and a fortress, 
and said that his torments were insupportable while Barto 
Rizzo w^as at large. This infamous republican had latterly 
been living in his house, eating his bread, and threatening 
death to him unless he obeyed every command. Sarpo had 
undertaken his last mission for the purpose of supplying his 
lack of resolution to release himself from his horrible ser¬ 
vitude by any other means; not from personal animosity 
toward the Countess Alessandra Ammiani, known as la 
Vittoria. When seized, fear had urged him to escape. 
Such was his second story. The points seemed irreconcile- 
able to those who were not in the habit of taking human 
nature into their calculations of a possible course of conduct; 
even Wilfrid, though he was aware that Barto Rizzo hated 
Vittoria inveterately, imagined Sarpo’s first lie to have 
necessarily fathered a second. But the second story was 
true : and the something like lover’s wrath with which the 
outrage to Vittoria fired Pericles, prompted him to act on it 
as truth. He told Wilfrid that he should summon Barto 
Rizzo to his presence. As the Government was unable to 
exhibit so much power, Wilfrid looked sarcastic; where¬ 
upon Pericles threw up his chin crying: “ Oh ! you shall 
know my resources. Now, my friend, one bit of paper, and 
a messenger, and then home to my house, to Tokay and 
cigarettes, and wait to see.” He remarked after pencilling 
a few lines, “ Countess d’Isorella is her enemy ? hein !” 

“ Why, yon wouldn’t listen to me when I told you,” said 
Wilfrid. 

“ No,” Pericles replied while writing and humming over his 
pencil; “my ear is a pelican-pouch, my friend; it—and Irma is 
her enemy also ?—it takes and keeps, but does not swallow till 
it wants. I shall hear you, and I shall hear my Sandra Vit¬ 
toria, and I shall not know you have spoken, when by-and-by 
‘ tinkle, tinkle,’ a bell of my brain, and your word walks in,— 
‘ q^uite well ?’—‘ very well!’—‘ sit down ’—‘ if it is ze same to 
you, I prefer to stand’—‘good; zen I examine you.’ My 
motto:—‘ Time opens ze gates :’ my system ;—it is your doctor 
of regimept’s systerp when your twelve, fifteen, forty recruits 


432 


VITTORIA. 


strip to him :—‘ Ah ! you, my man, have varicose vein : no 
soldier in our regiment, you !’ So on. Perhaps I am not 
intelligible ; but, hear zis. I speak not often of my money ; 
but I say—it is in your ear—a man of millions, he is a 
king!” The Greek jumped up and folded a couple of notes. 
“ I will not have her disturbed. Let her sing now and a 
while to Pericles and his public : and to ze Londoners, wiz 
your permission. Count Ammiani, one saison. I ask no more, 
and I am satisfied, and I endow your oldest child, signor 
Conte—it is said! For its mama was a good girl, a brave 
girl; she troubled Pericles, because he is an intellect; but 
he forgives when he sees sincerity—rare zing! Sincerity 
and genius : it may be zey are as man and wife in a bosom. 
He forgives ; it is not onnly voice he craves, but a soul, and 
Sandra, your countess, she has a soul—I am not a Turk. 
I say, it is a woman in whom a girl I did see a soul 1 A 
■woman when she is married, she is part of ze man; but a 
soul, it is for ever alone, apart, confounded wiz nobody ! 
For it I followed Sandra, your countess. It was a sublime 
devotion of a dog. Her voice tsrilled, her soul possessed me. 
Your countess is my Sandra still. I shall be pleased if 
child-bearing trouble her not more zan a very little ; but, 
enfin 1 she is jnarried, and you and I, my friend Wilfrid, we 
must accept ze decree, and say, no harm to her out of ze way 
of nature, by Saint Hicolas 1 or any what saint you choose 
for your invocation. Come along. And speed my letters by 
one of your militaires at once off. Ape Pericles’ millions 
gold of bad mint ? If so, he is an incapable. He presumes 
it is not so. Come along; we will drink to her in essence 
of Tokay. You shall witness two scenes. Away!” 

Wilfrid was barely to be roused from his fit of brooding 
into which Pericles had thrown him. He sent the letters, 
and begged to be left to sleep, The image of Yittoria seen 
through this man’s mind was new, and brought a new round 
of tormenfs. “ The devil take you,” he cried when Pericles 
plucked at his arm, I’ve sent the letters; isn’t that 
enough ?” He was bitterly jealous of the Greek’s philo¬ 
sophic review of the conditions of Vittoria’s marriage ; for 
when he had come away from the concert, not a thought of 
her being a wife had clouded his resignation to the fact. 
He went with Pericles, nevertheless, and was compelled to 
ftpkpowledge the kindling powers of the essence of Tokay. 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 


433 


“ Where do yon get this stuff ? ’1 he asked several times. 
Pericles chattered of England, and Hagar’s ‘ Addio,’ and 
‘ Camilla.’ What cabinet operas would he not give! 
What entertainments ! Could an emperor offer such festivi¬ 
ties to his subjects ? Was a Field Review equal to Yit- 
toria’s voice ? He stung Wilfrid’s ears by insisting on the 
mellowed depth, the soft human warmth, which marriage 
had lent to the voice. At a late hour his valet announced 
Countess d’Isorella. “ Did I not say so ? ” cried Pericles, 
and corrected himself; “ Ho, I did not say so; it was a sur¬ 
prise to you, my friend. You shall see; you shall hear. 
How you shall see What a friend Pericles can be when a 
person satisfy him.” He pushed Wilfrid into his dressing- 
room, and immediately received the coun ess with an out¬ 
burst of brutal invectives—pulling her i p and down the 
ranked regiment of her misdeeds, as it were. She tried 
dignity, tried anger, she affected amazement, she petitioned 
for the heads of his accusations, and, as nothing stopped 
him, she turned to go! Pericles laughed when she had left 
the room. Irma di Karski was announced the next minute, 
and Countess d’Isorella re-appeared beside her. Irma had a 
similar greeting. “I am lost,” she exclaimed. “Yes, you 
are lost,” said Pericles; “ a word from me, and the back of 
the public is humped at you—ha ! contessa, you touched 
Mdlle. Irma’s hand ? She is to be on her guard, and 
never to think she is lost till down she goes ? You are a 
more experienced woman! I tell you I will have no non¬ 
sense. I am Countess Alessandra Ammiani’s friend. You 
two, you women, are her enemies. I will ruin you both. 
You would prevent her singing in public places—you, 
Countess d’Isorella, because you do not forgive her marriage 
to Count Ammiani; you, Irma, to spite her for her voice. 
You would hiss her out of hearing, you two miserable 
creatures. Hot another soldo for you ! Hot one! and to¬ 
morrow, countess, I will see my lawyer. Irma, begone, and 
shriek to your wardrobe! Countess d’Isorella, I have the 
extreme honour.” 

Wilfrid marvelled to hear this titled and lovely woman 
speaking almost in tones of humility in reply to such out¬ 
rageous insolence. She craved a private interview. Irma 
was temporarily expelled, and then Violetta stooped to ask 
what the Greek’s reason for his behaviour could be. She 

2 F 


434 


VITTORIA. 


admitted that it was in his power to min her, as far as 
money went. “ Perhaps a little farther,” said Pericles ; 
“ say two steps. If one is on a precipice, two steps connt 
for something.” But, what had she done ? Pericles 
refused to declare it. This set her guessing with a charming 
naivete. Pericles called Irma back to assist her in the task, 
and quitted them that they might consult together and hit 
upon the right thing. His object was to send his valet for 
Luigi Saracco. He had seen that no truth could be 
extracted from these women, save forcibly. Unaware that 
he had gone out, Wilfrid listened long enough to hear Irma 
say, between sobs : “ Oh ! I shall throw myself upon his 
mercy. Oh, Countess d’lsorella, why did you lead me to 
think of vengeance! I am lost! He knows everything. 
Oh, what is it to me whether she lives with her husband ! 
Let them go on plotting. I am not the Government. I am 
sure I don’t much dislike her. Yes, I hate her, but why 
should I hurt myself ? She will wear those jewels on her 
forehead; she will wear that necklace with the big 
amethysts, and pretend she’s humble because she doesn’t 
carry earrings, when her ears have never been pierced! I 
am lost! Yes, you may say, look up ! I am only a poor 
singer, and he can ruin me. Oh ! Countess d’lsorella, oh ! 
what a fearful punishment. If Countess Anna should 
betray Count Ammiani to-night, nothing, nothing, will save 
me. I will confess. Let us both be beforehand with her— 
or you, it does not matter for a noble lady.” 

“ Hush !” said Violetta. “ Wbat dreadful fool is this 1 
sit with ? You may have done what you think of doing 
already.” 

She walked to the staircase door, and to that of the suite. 
An honourable sentiment, conjoined to the knowledge that 
he had heard sufficient, induced Wilfrid to pass on into the 
sleeping apartment a moment or so before Violetta took this 
precaution. The potent liquor of Pericles had deprived him 
of consecutive ideas ; he sat nursing a thunder in his head, 
imagining it to be profound thought, till Pericles flung the 
door open. Violetta and Irma had departed. “ Behold ! I 
have it; ze address of your rogue Barto Rizzo,” said 
Pericles, in the manner of one whose triumph is absolutely 
due to his own shrewdness. “ Are two women a match for 
me ? How, my friend, you shall see. Barto Rizzo is too 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 


435 


clever for zis government, which cannot catch him. I catch 
him, and I teach him he may touch politics—it is not for 
him to touch Art. What! to hound men to interrupt her 
w^hile she sings in public places ? What next! But I knew 
my Countess d’Isorella could help me, and so I sent for her 
to confront Irma, and dare to say she knew not Barto’s 
dwelling—and why ? I will tell you a secret. A long-flat- 
tered woman, my friend, she has liad, you will think, enough 
of it; no ! she is like avarice. If it is worship of swine, she 
cannot refuse it. Barto Rizzo worships her; so it is a 
deduction—she knows his abode—I act upon that, and I 
arrive at my end. I now send him to ze devil.” 

Barto Rizzo, after having evaded the polizia of the city 
during a three months’ steady chase, was effectually cap¬ 
tured on the doorstep of Vittoria’s house in the Corso 
Francesco, by gendarmes whom Pericles had set on his 
track. A day later Vittoria was stabbed at about the same 
hour, on the same spot. A woman dealt the blow. Vittoria 
was returning from an afternoon drive with Laura Piaveni 
and the children. She saw a woman seated on the steps as 
beggarwomen sit, face in lap. Anxious to shield her from 
the lacquey, she sent the two little ones up to her with 
small bits of money. But, as the woman would not lift her 
head, she and Laura prepared to pass her, Laura coming 
last. The blow, like all such unexpected incidents, had the 
effect of lightning on those present; the woman might have 
escaped, but after she had struck she sat down impassive as 
a cat by the hearth, with a round-eyed stare. 

The news that Vittoria had been assassinated traversed 
the city. Carlo was in Turin, Merthyr in Rome. Pericles 
was one of the first who reached the house ; he was coming 
out when Wilfrid and the Duchess of Grraatli drove up; and 
he accused the Countess d’Isorella flatly of having instigated 
the murder. He was frantic. They supposed that she must 
have succumbed to the wound. The duchess sent for Laura. 
There was a press of carriages and soft-humming people in 
the street; many women and men sobbing. Wilfrid had to 
wait an hour for the duchess, who brought comfort when 
she came. Her first words were reassuring. “Ah!” she 
said, “ did I not do well to make you drive here with me 
instead of with Lena ? Those eyes of yours would be un¬ 
pardonable to her. Yes, indeed; though a corpse were 

2f2 


436 


VITTORIA. 


lying in this house: but Countess Alessandra is safe. I have 
seen her. I have held her hand.” 

Wilfrid kissed the duchess’s hand passionately. 

What she had said of Lena was true: Lena could only be 
generous upon the after-thought; and when the duchess 
drove Wilfrid back to her, he had to submit to hear scorn 
and indignation against all Italians, who were denounced as 
cut-throats, and worse and worse and worse, males and 
females alike. This was grounded on her sympathy for 
Vittoria. But Wilfrid now felt toward the Italians through 
his remembrance of that devoted soul’s love of them, and 
with one direct look he bade his betrothed good-bye, and 
they parted. 

It was in the early days of March that Merthyr, then 
among the Republicans of Rome, heard from Laura Piaveni. 
Two letters reached him, one telling of the attempted assas¬ 
sination, and a second explaining circumstances connected 
with it. The first summoned him to Milan ; the other left 
it to his option to make the journey. He started, carrying 
kind messages from the Chief to Vittoria, and from Luciano 
Romara the offer of a renewal of old friendship to Count 
Ammiani. His political object was to persuade the Lom¬ 
bard youth to turn their whole strength upon Rome. The 
desire of his heart was again to see her, who had been so 
nearly lost to all eyes for ever. 

Laura’s first letter stated brief facts. “ She was stabbed 
this afternoon, at half-past two, on the steps of her house, 
by a woman called the wife of Barto Rizzo. She caught 
her hands up under her throat when she saw the dagger. 
Her right arm was penetrated just above the wrist, and 
half an inch in the left breast, close to the centre bone. She 
behaved firmly. The assassin only struck once. Ho visible 
danger; but you should come, if you have no serious work.” 

“ Happily,” ran the subsequent letter, of two days’ later 
date, “ the assassin was a woman, and one effort exhausts 
a woman ; she struck only once, and became idiotic. Sandra 
has no fever. She had her wits ready—where were mine ? 
—when she received the wound. While I had her in my 
arms, she gave orders that the woman should be driven out 
of the city in her carriage. The Greek, her mad musicfil 
adorer, accuses Countess d’Isorella. Carlo has seen this 
person—returns convinced of her innocence. That is not 


THROUGH THE WINTER. 


437 


an accepted proof; but we have one. It seems that Rizzo 
(Sandra was secret about it and about one or two other 
things) sent to her commanding her to appoint an hour— 
detestable style ! I can see it now ; I fear these conspiracies 
no longer:—she did appoint an hour ; and was awaiting him 
when the gendarmes sprang on the man at her door. He 
had evaded them several weeks, so we are to fancy that his 
wife charged Countess Alessandra with the betrayal. This 
appears a reasonable and simple way of accounting for the 
deed. So I only partly give credit to it. But it may be 
true. 

“ The wound has not produced a shock to her system- 
very very fortunately. On the whole, a better thing could 
not have happened. Should I be more explicit ? Yes, to 
you ; for you are not of those who see too much in what is 
barely said. The wound, then, my dear good friend, has 
healed another wound, of which I knew nothing. Bergamasc 
and Brescian friends of her husband’s, have imagined that 
she interrupted or diverted his studies. He also discovered 
that she had an opinion of her own, and sometimes he con¬ 
sulted it; but alas ! they are lovers, and he knew not when 
love listened, or she when love spoke; and there was grave 
business to be done meanwhile. Can you kindly allow that 
the case was op^ to a little confusion ? I know that you 
will. He had to hear many violent reproaches from his 
fellow-students. These have ceased. 1 send this letter on 
the chance of the first being lost on the road; and it will 
supplement the first pleasantly to you in any event. She 
lies here in the room where I write, propped on high pillows, 
the right arm bound up, and says : ‘ Tell Merthyr I prayed 
to be in Rome with my husband, and him, and the Chief. 
Tell him I love my friend. Tell him I think he deserves to 

be in Rome. Tell him- Enter Countess Ammiani to 

reprove her for endangering the hopes of the house by 
fatiguing herself. Sandra sends a blush at me, and I smile, 
and the countess kisses her. I send you a literal transcript 
of one short scene, so that you may feel at home with us. 

“ There is a place called Venice, and there is a place 
called Rome, and both places are pretty places and famous 
places ; and there is a thing called the fashion; and these 
pretty places and famous places set the fashion: and there 
is a place called Milan, and a place called Bergamo, and a 



438 


VITTORIA. 


place called Brescia, and they all want to follow the fashion, 
for they are giddy-pated baggages. What is the fashion, 
mama ? The fashion, my dear, is &c. &c. &c.:—Extract of 
lecture to my little daughter, Amalia, who says she forgets 
you; but Giacomo sends his manly love. Oh, good God! 
should I have blood in my lips when I kissed him, if I knew 
that he was old enough to go out with a sword in his hand a 
week hence ? I seem every day to be growing more and 
more all mother. This month in front of us is full of thunder. 
Addio!” 

When Melthyr stood in sight of Milan an army was 
issuing from the gates. 


CHAPTER XLL 

THE INTERVIEW. 

Merthyr saw Laura first. He thought that Vittoria must 
be lying on her couch: but Laura simply figured her arm in 
a sling, and signified, more than said, that Vittoria was well 
and taking the air. She then begged hungrily for news of 
Rome, and again of Rome, and sat with her hands clasped in 
her lap to listen. She mentioned Venice in a short breath 
of praise, as if her spirit could not repose there. Rome, its 
hospitals, its municipal arrangements, the names of the 
triumvirs, the prospects of the city, the edicts, the aspects 
of the streets, the popularity of the Government, the number 
of volunteers ranked under the magical Republic—of these 
things Merthyr talked, at her continual instigation, till, 
stopping abruptly, he asked her if she wished to divert him 
from any painful subject. “Ho, no!” she cried, “ it’s only 
that I want to feel an anchor. We are all adrift. Sandra 
is in perfect health. Our bodies, dear Merthyr, are enjoying 
the perfection of comfort. Nothing is done here except to 
keep us from boiling over.” 

“ Why does not Count Ammiani come to Rome ?” said 
Merthyr. 

“ Why are we not all in Rome ? Yes, why 1 why ! We 
should make a carnival of our own if we were.’ 



THE INTERVIEW. 


439 


“ She would have escaped that horrible knife,” Merthyr 
sighed. 

“ Yes, she would have escaped that horrible knife. But 
see the difference between Milan and Rome, my friend ! It 
was a blessed knife here. It has given her husband back to 
her; it has destroyed the intrigues against her. It seems 
to have been sent—I was kneeling in the cathedi*al this 
morning, and had the very image crossing my eyes—from 
the saints of heaven to cut the black knot. Perhaps it may 
be the means of sending us to Rome.” 

Laura paused, and, looking at him, said, “ It is so utterly 
impossible for us women to comprehend love without folly 
in a man; the trait by which we recognize it! Merthyr, you 
dear Englishman, you shall know everything. Do we not 
think a tisane a weak washy drink, when we are strong ? 
But we learn, when we lie with our chins up, and our ten 
toes like stopped organ-pipes—as Sandra says—we learn 
then that it means fresh health and activity, and is better 
than rivers of your fiery wines. Yon love her, do you 
not?” ^ 

The question came with great simplicity. 

“ If I can give a proof of it, I am ready to answer,” said 
Merthyr, in some surprise. 

“ Your whole life is the proof of it. The women of your 
country are intolerable to me, Merthyr: but I do see the 
worth of the men. Sandra has taught me. She can think 
of you, talk of you, kiss the vision of you, and still be a 
faithful woman in our bondage of flesh; and to us you know 
what a bondage it is. How can that be ? I should have 
asked, if I had not seen it. Dearest, she loves her husband, 
and she loves you. She has two husbands, and she turns to 
the husband of her spirit when that, or any, dagger strikes 
her bosom. Carlo has an unripe mind. They have been 
-married but a little more than four months; and he reveres 
her and loves her.” .... Laura’s voice dragged. “Multiply 
the months by thousands, we shall not make those two lives 
one. It is the curse of man’s education in Italy ? He can 
see that she has wits and courage. He will not consent to 
make use of them. You know her : she is not one to talk of 
these things. She, who has both heart and judgement—she 
is merely a little boat tied to a big ship. Such is their mar¬ 
riage. She cannot influence him. She is not allowed to 


440 


VITTORIA. 


advise him. And she is the one who should lead the way. 
And if she did, we should now be within sight of the City.” 

Laura took his hand. She found it moist, though his face 
was calm and his chest heaved regularly. An impish form 
of the pity women feel for us at times moved her to say, 
“Your skin is as bronzed as it was last year. Sandra spoke 
of it. She compared it to a young vine-leaf. I wonder 
whether girls have really an admonition of what is good 
for them while they are going their ways like destined 
machines ?” 

“Almost all men are of flesh an d blood,” said Merthyr 
softly. 

“ 1 spoke of girls.” 

“ I speak of men.” 

“ Blunt-witted that I am! Of course you did. But do 
not imagine that she is not happy with her husband. They 
are united firmly.” 

“ The better for her, and him, and me,” said Merthyr. 

Laura twisted an end of her scarf with fretful fingers. 
“ Carlo Albert has crossed the Ticino ?” 

“ Is about to do so,” Merthyr rejoined. 

“ Will Rome hold on if he is defeated ?” 

“ Rome has nothing to fear on that side.” 

“ But you do not speak hopefully of Rome.” 

“ I suppose I am thinking of other matters.” 

“ You confess it!” 

The random conversation wearied him. His foot tapped 
the floor. 

“ Why do you say that ?” he asked. 

“Verily, for no other reason than that I have a wicked 
curiosity, and that you come from Rome,” said Laura, now 
perfectly frank, and believing that she had explained hei 
enigmatical talk, if she had not furnished an excuse for it 
Merthyr came from the City which was now encircled by an 
irradiating halo in her imagination, and a fit of spontaneous 
inexplicable feminine tenderness being upon her at the mo¬ 
ment of their meeting, she found herself on a sudden prompted 
to touch and probe and brood voluptuously over an unfor¬ 
tunate lover’s feelings, supposing that they existed. For 
the glory of Rome was on him, and she was at the same time 
angry with Carlo Ammiani. It was the form of passion her 
dedicated widowhood could still be subject to in its youth; 


THE INTERVIEW. 


441 


t je sole one. By this chance Merthyr learnt what nothing 
else would have told him. 

Her tale of the attempted assassination was related with 
palpable indifference. She stated the facts. “ The woman 
seemed to gasp while she had her hand up; she struck with 
no force; and she has since been inanimate, I hear. The 
doctor says that a spasm of the heart seized her when she 
was about to strike. It has been shaken—I am not sure that 
he does not say displaced, or unseated—by some one of her 
black tempers. She shot Binaldo Guidascarpi dead. Per¬ 
haps it was that.' I am informed that she worshipped the 
poor boy, and has been like a trapped she-wolf since she did 
it. In some way she associated our darling with Rinaldo’s 
death, like the brute she is. The ostensible ground for her 
futile bit of devilishness was that she fancied Sandra to have 
betrayed Barto Rizzo, her husband, into the hands of the 
polizia. He wrote to the Countess Alessandra—such a letter! 
—a curiosity 1—he must see her and cross-examine her to 
satisfy himself that she was a true patriot, &c. You know the 
style: we neither of us like it. Sandra was waiting to receive 
him when they pounced on him by the door. Next day the 
woman struck at her. Decidedly a handsome woman. She is the 
exact contrast to the Countess Violetta in face, in everything. 
Heart-disease wiH certainly never affect that pretty spy 1 But, 
mark,” pursued Laura, warming, “when Carlo arrived, tears, 
penitence, heaps of self-accusations: he had been unkind to 
her even on Lake Orta, where they passed their golden 
month; he had neglected her at Turin; he had spoken 
angry words in Milan; in fact, he had misused his treasure, 
and begged pardon;—‘ If you please, my poor bleeding 
angel, I am sorry. But do not, I entreat, distract me with 
petitions of any sort, though I will perform anything earthly 
to satisfy you. Be a good little boat in the wake of the big 
ship. I will look over at you, and chirrup now and then to 
you, my dearest, when I am not engaged in piloting extra¬ 
ordinary.’—Very well; I do not mean to sneer at the 
unhappy boy, Merthyr; I love him; he was my husband’s 
broUier-in-arms; the sweetest lad ever seen. He is in the 
season of faults. He must command ; he must be a chief ; 
he fancies he can intrigue—poor thing ! It will pass. And 
so will the hour to be forward to Rome. But I call your 
attention to this : when he heard of the dagger—I have it 


442 


VITTORIA 


from Colonel Corte, who was with him at the time in Turin 
—he cried out Violetta d’Isorella’s name. Why ? After 
he had buried his head an hour on Sandra’s pillow, he went 
straight to Countess d’Isorella, and was absent till night. 
The woman is hideous to me. No; don’t conceive that I 
think her Sandra’s rival. She is too jealous. She has him 
in some web. If she has not ruined him, she will. She 
was under my eyes the night she heard of his marriage: I 
saw how she will look at seventy! Here is Carlo at the 
head of a plot she has prepared for him; and he has Angelo 
Guidascarpi, and Ugo Corte, Marco Sana, (Giulio Bandinelli, 
and about fifty others. They have all been kept away from 
Home by that detestable-—— you object to hear bad names 
cast on women, Merthyr. Hear Agostino! The poor old 
man comes daily to this house to persuade Carlo to lead his 
band to Rome. It is so clearly Rome—Rome, where all his 
comrades are ; where the chief stand must be made by the 
side of Italy’s Chief. Worst sign of all, it has been hinted 
semi-officially to Carlo that he may upon application be 
permitted to re-issue his journal. Does not that show that 
the Government wishes to blindfold him, and keep him 
here, and knows his plans ?” 

Laura started up as the door opened, and Vittoria 
appeared leaning npon Carlo’s arm. Countess Ammiani, 
Countess d’Isorella, and Pericles were behind them. Laura’s 
children followed. 

When Merthyr rose, Vittoria was smiling in Carlo’s face 
at something that had been spoken. She was pale, and her 
arm was in a sling, but there was no appearance of her 
being unnerved. Merthyr waited for her recognition of 
him. She turned her eyes from Carlo slowly. The soft 
dull smile in them died out as it were with a throb, and then 
her head drooped on one shoulder, and she sank to the 
fioor. 


TBE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY. 


443 


CHAPTER XLII. 

THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY. 

Merthyr left the house at Laura’s whispered suggestion. 
He was agitated beyond control, for Yittoria had fallen 
with her eyes fixed on him ; and at times the picture of his 
beloved, her husband, and Countess Ammiani, and the 
children bending over her still body, swam before him like 
a dark altar-piece floating in incense, so lost was he to the 
reality of that scene. He did not hear Beppo, his old ser¬ 
vant', at his heels. After awhile he walked calmly, and 
Beppo came up beside him. Merthyr shook his hand. 

“Ah, Signor Mertyrio ! ah, padrone !” said Beppo. 

Merthyr directed his observation to a regiment of Aus¬ 
trians marching down the Corso Venezia to the Ticinese 
gate. 

“ Yes, they are ready enough for us,” Beppo remarked. 
“ Perhaps Carlo Alberto will beat them this time. If he 
does, viva to him! If they beat him, down goes another 

Venetian pyramid. The Countess Alessandra-” Beppo’s 

speech failed. 

“ What of your mistress ? ” said Merthyr. 

“ When she dies, my dear master, there’s no one for me 
but the Madonna to serve.” 

“Why should she die, silly fellow ?” 

“ Because she never cries.” 

Merthyr was on the point of saying, “ Why should she 
cry ? ” His heart "was too full, and he shrank from inquisi¬ 
tive shadows of the thing known to him. 

“ Sit down at this caffe with me,” he said. “ It’s fine 
weather for March. The troops will camp comfortably. 
Those Hungarians never require tents. Did you see much 
sacking of villages last year ? ” 

“ Padrone, the Imperial command is always to spare the 
villages.” 

“ That’s humane.” 

“ Padrone, yes ; if policy is humanity.” 

“ It’s humanity not carried quite as far as we should wish 

it.” 



444 


VITTOPJA. 


Beppo shrugged and said: “ It won’t leave much upon the 
conscience if we kill them.” 

“ Do you expect a rising ? ” said Merthyr. 

“ If the Ticino overflows, it will flood Milan,” was the 
answer. 

“ And your occupation now is to watch the height of the 
water ? ” 

“ My occupation, padrone ? I am not on the watch- 
tower.” Beppo winked, adding: “I have my occupation.” 
He threw off the effort or pretence to be discreet. “ Master 
of my soul! this is my occupation. I drink coffee, but I do 
not smoke, because I have to kiss a pretty girl, who means 
to object to the smell of the smoke. Via! I know her! At 
five she draws me into the house.” 

“ Are you relating your amours to me, rascal ? ” Merthyr 
interposed. 

“ Padrone, at five precisely she draws me into the house. 
She is a German girl. Pardon me if I make no war on 
women. Her name is Aennchen, which one is able to say 
if one grimaces ;—why not ? It makes her laugh ; and 
German girls are amiable when one can make them laugh. 
’Tis so that they begin to melt. Behold the difference of 
races ! I must kiss her to melt her, and then have a quar¬ 
rel. I could have it after the first, or the fiftieth with an 
Italian girl; but my task will be excessively difficult with a 
German girl, if I am compelled to allow myself to favour her 
with one happy solicitation for a kiss, to commence with. 
We shall see. It is, as my abstention from tobacco declares, 
an anticipated catastrophe.” 

“ Long-worded, long-winded, obscure, affirmatizing by 
negatives, confessing by implication 1—where’s the beginning 
and end of you, and what’s your meaning,” said Merthyr, 
who talked to him as one may talk to an Italian servant. 

“ The contessa, my mistress, has enemies. Padrone, I 
devote myself to her service.” 

“ By making love to a lady’s maid ? ” 

“ Padrone, a rat is not born to find his way up the grand 
staircase. She has enemies. One of them was the sublime 
Barto Rizzo—admirable—though I must hate him. He said 
to his wife : ‘ If a thing happens to me, stab to the heart 
the Countess Alessandra Ammiani.’” 

“ Inform me how you know that ? ” said Merthyr. 


THE SHADOW OP CONSPIRACY. 


445 


Beppo pointed to his head, and Merthyr smiled. To 
imagine, invent, and believe, were spontaneous with Beppo 
when his practical sagacity was not on the stretch. He 
glanced at the caffe clock. 

“ Padrone, at eleven to-night shall I see you here ? At 
eleven I shall come like a charged cannon. I have business. 
I have seen _my mistress’s blood! I will tell you: this 
German girl lets me know that some one detests my mistress. 
Who ? I am off to discover. But who is the damned 
creature ? I must coo and kiss, while my toes are dancing 
on hot plates, to find her out. Who is she ? If she were 
half Milan . . .” 

His hands waved in outline the remainder of the speech, 
and he rose, but sat again. He had caught sight of the spy; 
Luigi Saracco, addressing the signor Antonio-Pericles in his 
carriage. Pericles drove on. The horses presently turned, 
and he saluted Merthyr. 

“ She has but one friend in Milan: it is myself,” was his 
‘ introductory remark. “ My poor child ! my dear Powys, 
she is the best—‘ I cannot sing to you to-day, dear Pericles ’ 
—she said that after she had opened her eyes ; after the first 
mist, you know. She is the best child upon earth. I could 
wish she were a devil, my Powys. Such a voice should be 
in an iron body. But she has immense health. The doctor, 
who is also mine, feels her pulse. He assures me it goes as 
Time himself, and Time, my friend, you know, has the inten¬ 
tion of going a great way. She is good : she is too good. 
She makes a baby of Pericles, to whom what is woman ? 
Have I not the sex in my pocket ? Her husband, he is a 
fool, ser.” Pericles broke thundering into a sentence of 
English, fell in love with it, and resumed in the same 
tongue : “ I—it is I zat am her guard, her safety. Her 
husband—oh ! she must marry a young man, little donkey 
zat she is ! We accept it as a destiny, my Powys. And he 
plays false to her. Good ; I do not object. But, imagine in 
your own mind, my Powys—instead of passion, of rage, of 
tempest, she is frozen wiz a repose. Do you, hein ? sink it 
will come out,”—Pericles eyed Merthyr with a subtle smile 
askew,—“ I have sot so ;—it will come out when she is one 
day in a terrible scene . . . Mon Dieu! it was a terrible 
scene for me when I looked on ze clout zat washed ze blood 
of ze terrible assassination. So goes out a voice, possibly I 


446 


VITTOEIA. 


Divine, you say? We are a machine. ^N’ow, you behold, 
she has faints. It may happen at my concert where she 
sings to-morrow night. You saw me in my carriage speak¬ 
ing to a man. He is my spy—my dog wiz a nose. I have 
set him upon a woman. If zat woman has a plot for to¬ 
morrow night to spoil my concert, she shall not know where 
she shall wake to-morrow morning after. Ha ! here is mili¬ 
tary music—twenty sossand doors jam on horrid hinge ; and 
right, left, right, left, to it, confound! like dolls all wiz one 
face. Look at your soldiers, Powys. Put zem on a stage, 
and you see all background people—a bawling chorus. It 
shows to you how superior it is—a stage to life! Hark to 
such music ! I cannot stand it; I am driven away; I am 
violent; I rage.” 

Pericles howled the name of his place of residence, with 
an oiler of lodgings in it, and was carried off writhing his 
body as he passed a fine military marching band. 

The figure of old Agostino Balderini stood in front of 
Merthyr. They exchanged greetings. At the mention of 
Rome, Agostino frowned impatiently. He spoke of Yittoria 
in two or three short exclamations, and was about to speak 
of Carlo, but checked his tongne. “ Judge for yourself. 
Come, and see, and approve, if you can. Will you come ? 
There’s a meeting; there’s to be a resolution. Question— 
Shall we second the King of Sardinia, Piedmont, and Savoy ? 
If so, let us set this pumpkin, called Milan, on its legs. I 
shall be an attentive listener like you, my friend. I speak no 
more.” 

Merthyr went with him to the house of a carpenter, where 
in one of the uppermost chambers communicating with the 
roof, Ugo Corte, Marco Sana, Giulio Bandinelli, and others, 
sat waiting for the arrival of Carlo Ammiani ; when he came 
Carlo had to bear with the looks of mastiffs for being late. 
He shook Merthyr’s hand hurriedly, and as soon as the door 
was fastened, began to speak. His first sentence brought a 
grunt of derision from Ugo Corte. It declared that there 
was no hope of a rising in Milan. Carlo swung round upon 
the Bergamasc. “ Observe our leader,” Agostino whispered 
to Merthyr; “it would be kindness to give him a duel.” 
More than one tumult of outcries had to be stilled before 
Merthyr gathered any notion of the designs of the persons 
present. Bergamasc sneered at Brescian, and both united in 


THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY. 


447 


contempt of the Milanese, who, having a burden on their 
minds, appealed at once to their individual willingness to 
use the sword in vindication of Milan against its traducers. 
By a great effort. Carlo got some self-mastery. He admitted, 
colouring horribly, that Brescia and Bergamo were ready^ 
and Milan was not; therefore those noble cities (he read 
excerpts from letters showing their readiness) were to take 
the lead, and thither on the morrow-night he would ero, let 
the tidings from the king’s army be what they might. 

Merthyr quitted the place rather impressed by his elo¬ 
quence, but unfavourably by his feverish look. Countess 
d’Isorella had been referred to as one who served the cause 
ably and faithfully. In alluding to her. Carlo bit his lip ; 
he did not proceed until surrounding murmurs of satisfac¬ 
tion encouraged him to continue a sort of formal eulogy of 
the lady, which proved to be a defence against foregone 
charges, for Corte retracted an accusation, and said that he 
had no fault to find with the countess. A proposition to join 
the enterprise was put to Merthyr, but his engagement with 
the Chief in Home saved him from hearing much of the 
marvellous facilities of the plot. “ I should have wished to 
see you to-night,” Carlo said as they were parting. Merthyr 
named his hotel. Carlo nodded. “My wife is still slightly 
feeble,” he said. 

“ I regret it,” Merthyr rejoined. 

“ She is not ill.” 

“ No, it cannot be want of courage,” Merthyr spoke at 
random. 

“ Yes, that’s true,” said Carlo, as vacantly. “ You will 
see her while T am travelling.” 

“ I hope to find the Countess Alessandra well enough to 
receive me.” 

“ Always; always,” said Carlo, wishing apparently to say 
more. Merthyr waited an instant, but Carlo broke into a 
conventional smile of adi^^u. 

“ While he is travelling ,Merthyr repeated to Agostino, 
who had stood by during the brief dialogue, and led the way 
to the Corso. 

“ He did not say how far!” was the old man’s ejacula¬ 
tion. 

“ But, good heaven! if you think he’s on an unfortunate 
errand, why don’t you stop him, advise him ?” Merthyr 
broke out. 


448 


VITTORIA. 


“ Advise him! stop him ! my friend. I would advise him, 
if I had the patience of angels; stop him, if I had the power 
of Lucifer. Did you not see that he shunned speaking to 
me ? I have been such a perpetual dish of vinegar under 
his nose for the last month, that the poor fellow sniffs when 
I draw near. He must go his way. He leads a torrent that 
must sweep him on. Corte, Sana, and the rest, would be in 
Rome now, but for him. So should I. Your Agostino, 
however, is not of Bergamo, or of Brescia ; he is not a mad¬ 
man; simply a poor rheumatic Piedmontese, who discerns 
the point where a united Italy may fix its standard. I would 
start for Rome to-morrow, if I could leave her—my soul’s 
child !” Agostino raised his hand: “ I do love the woman. 
Countess Alessandra Ammiani. I say, she is a peerless 
woman. Is she not ?” 

“ There is none like her,” said Merthyr. 

“ A peerless woman, recognized and sacrificed ! I cannot 
leave her. If the Government here would lay hands on 
Carlo and do their worst at once, I would be off. They are 
too wary. I believe that they are luring him to his ruin. I 
can give no proofs, but I judge by the best evidence. What 
avails my telling him ? I lose my temper the moment I 
begin to speak. A curst witch beguiles the handsome idiot 
■—poor darling lad that he is ! She has him—can I tell you 
how ? She has got him—got him fast! The nature of the 
chains are doubtless innocent, if those which a woman 
throws round us be ever distinguishable. He loves his wife 
—he is not a monster.” 

“ He appears desperately feverish,” said Merthyr. 

“ Did you not notice it ? Yes, like a man pushed by his 
destiny out of the path. He is ashamed to hesitate; he 
cannot turn back. Ahead of him he sees a gulf. That 
army of Carlo Alberto may do something under its Pole. 
Prophecy is too easy. I say no more. We may have 
Lombardy open ; and if so, my poor boy’s vanity will be 
crowned: he will only have the king and his army against 
him then.” 

Discoursing in this wise, they reached, the caffe where 
Beppo had appointed to meet his old master, and sat amid 
here and there a whitecoat, and many nods and whispers 
over such news as the privileged journals and the official 
gazette afforded. 


THE SHADOW OF COXSPIEACY. 


449 


Beppo’s destination was to the Duchess of Graatli’s 
palace. Nearing it, he perceived Luigi endeavouring to gain 
a passage beside the burly form of Jacob Baumwalder 
Feckelwitz, who presently seized him and hurled him into 
the road. As Beppo was sidling up the courtway, Jacob 
sprang back ; Luigi made a rush ; Jacob caught them both, 
but they wriggled out of his clutch, and Luigi, being the 
fearfuller, ran the farthest. While he was out of hearing, 
Beppo told Jacob to keep watch upon Luigi, as the bearer of 
an amorous letter from a signor of quality to Aennchen, the 
which he himself desired to obtain sight of; “ for the wench 
has caused me three sleepless nights,” he confessed frankly. 
Jacob affected not to understand. Luigi and Beppo now 
leaned against the wall on either side of him and baited 
him till he shook with rage. “ He is the lord of the duchess, 
his mistress—what a lucky fellow!” said Luigi. “When 
he’s dog at the gates no one can approach her. When he 
isn’t, you can fancy what!” “ He’s only a mechanical con¬ 

trivance ; he’s not a man,” said Beppo. “ He’s the principal 
flea-catcher of the palace,” said Luigi; “here he is all day, 
and at night the devil knows where he hunts.”—Luigi 
hopped in a half-circle round the exacerbated Jacob, and 
finally provoked an assault that gave an opening to Beppo. 
They all ran in, Luigi last. Jacob chased Beppo up the 
stairs, lost him, and remembered what he had said of the 
letter borne by Luigi, for whom he determined to lie in 
waiting. “ Better two in there than one,” he thought. The 
two courted his Aennchen openly; but Luigi, as the bearer 
of an amorous letter from the signor of quality, who could 
be no other than signor Antonio-Pericles, was the one to be 
intercepted. Like other jealous lovers, Jacob wanted to read 
Aennchen’s answer, to be cured of his fatal passion for the 
maiden, and on this he set the entire force of his mind. 

Running up by different staircases, Beppo and Luigi came 
upon Aennchen nearly at the same time.' She turned a 
cold face on Beppo, and requested Luigi to follow her. 
Astonished to see him in such favour, Beppo was ready to 
provoke the quarrel before the kiss when she returned; but 
she said that she had obeyed her' mistress’s orders, and was 
obeying the duchess in refusing to speak of them, or of any¬ 
thing relating to them. She had promised him an interview 
in that little room leading into the duchess’s boudoir. He 


450 


VITTOEIA. 


pressed her to conduct him. “ Ah ; then it’s not for mo you 
come,” she said. Beppo had calculated that the kiss would 
open his way to the room, and the quarrel disembarrass him 
ot his pretty companion when there. “ You have come to 
listen to conversation aq’ain,” said Aennchen. “ Ach ! the' 
fool a woman is to think that you Italians have any idea 
except self-interest when you, when you . . . talk nonsense 
to us. Go away, if you please. Good evening.” She dropped 
a curtsey with a surly coquetry, charming of its kind. Beppo 
protested that the room was dear to him because there first 
he had known for one blissful half-second the sweetness of 
her mouth. 

“ Who told you that persons who don’t like your mistress 
are going to talk in there ?” said Aennchen. 

“ You,” said Beppo. 

Aennchen drew up in triumph : “ And now will you pre¬ 
tend that you didn’t come up here to go in there to listen 
to what they say ?” 

Beppo clapped hands at her cleverness in trapping him. 

“ Hush,” said all her limbs and features, belying the pi-evious 
formal ‘ good-evening ’ He refused to be silent, thinking it 
a way of getting to the little antechamber. “ Then, I tell 
you, down-stairs you go,” said Aennchen stiffly. 

“ Is it decided ?” Beppo asked. “ Then, good-evening. 
You detestable German girls can’t love. One step—a smile : 
another step—a kiss. You tit-for-tat minx! Have you no 
notion of the sacredness of the sentiments which inspires me 
to petition that the place for our interview should be there 
where I tasted ecstatic joy for the space of a flash of light¬ 
ning ? I will go; but it is there that I will go, and I will 
await you there, Signorina Aennchen. Yes, laugh at me ! 
laugh at me!” 

“ Ho; really, I don’t laugh at you. Signor Beppo,” said 
Aennchen, protesting in denial of what she was doing. 

“ This way.” 

“ Ho, it’s that way,” said Beppo. 

“ It’s through here.” She opened a door. “ The duchess 
has a reception to-night, and you can’t go round. Ach ! you 
would not betray me ?” 

“ Hot if it were the duchess herself,” said Beppo; he 
would refuse to satisfy man’s natural vanity in such a 
case. 


THE SHADOW OP CONSPIRACY. 


451 


Eager to advance to the little ante-chamber, he allowed 
Aennchen to wait behind him. He heard the door shut and 
a lock turn, and he was in the dark, and alone, left to take 
counsel of his fingers’ ends. 

“ She was born to it,” Beppo remarked, to extenuate his 
outwitted cunning, when he found each door of the room 
fast against him. 

On the following night Vittoria was to sing at a concert 
in the Duchess of Graiitli’s great saloon, and the duchess 
had humoured Pericles by consenting to his preposterous 
request that his spy should have an opportunity of hearing 
Countess d’Isorella and Irma di Karski in private conver¬ 
sation together, to discover whether there was any plot of 
any sort to vex the evening’s entertainment; as the jealous 
spite of those two women, Pericles said, was equal to any 
devilry on earth. It happened that Countess d’Isorella did 
not come. Luigi, in despair, was the hearer of a quick 
question and answer dialogue, in the obscure German tongue, 
between Anna Von Lenkenstein and Irma di Karski; but a 
happy peep between the hanging curtains gave him sight 
of a letter passing from Anna’s hands to Irma’s. Anna 
quitted her. Irma was looking at the superscription of the 
letter, in the act of passing in her steps, when Luigi tore 
the curtains apart, and sprang on her arm like a cat. Before 
her shrieks could bring succour, Luigi was bounding across 
the court with the letter in his possession. A dreadful hug 
awaited him; his pockets were ransacked, and he was 
pitched aching into the street. Jacob Baumwalder Feckel- 
witz went straightway under a gas-lamp, where he read the 
address of the letter to Countess d’Isorella. He doubted; 
he had a half-desire to tear the letter open. But a rumour 
of the attack upon Irma had spread among the domestics, 
and Jacob prudently went up to his mistress. The duchess 
was sitting with Laura. She received the letter, eyed it 
all over, and held it to a candle. Laura’s head was bent in 
dark meditation. The sudden increase of light aroused 
her, and she asked, “ What is that 

“A letter from Countess Anna to Countess d’Isorella,” 
said the duchess. 

“ Burnt!” Laura screamed. 

“It’s only fair,” the duchess remarked. 

“ From her to that woman ! It may be priceless. Slop! 

‘ 2 G 2 


452 


VITTORIA. 


Let me see wliat remains. Amalia! are yon mad? Oh I 
you false friend. I would have sacrificed my right hand to 
see it.” 

“ Try and love me still,” said the duchess, letting her take 
one unburnt corner, and crumble the black tissuey fragments 
to smut in her hands. 

There was no writing; the nnburnt corner of the letter 
was a blank. 

Laura fooled the wretched ashes between her palms. 
“ Good-night,” she said. “ Your face will be of this colour 
to me, my dear, for long.” 

“ I cannot behave disgracefully, even to keep your love, 
my beloved,” said the duchess. 

“You cannot betray a German, you mean,” Laura re¬ 
torted. “ You could let a spy into the house.” 

“ That was a childish matter—merely to satisfy a whim.” 

“ I say you could let a spy into the house. Who is to 
know where the scruples of you women begin ? I would 
have given my jewels, my head, my husband’s sword, for a 
sight of that letter. I swear that it concerns us. Yes, us. 
You are a false friend. Fish-blooded creature! may it be 
a year before I look on you again. Hide among your miser¬ 
able set!” 

“ Judge me when you are cooler, dearest,” said the duchess, 
seeking to detain the impetuous sister of her afiection by 
the sweeping skirts; but Laura spurned her touch, and 
went from her. 

Irma drove to Countess dTsorella’s. Violetta was abed, 
and lay fair and placid as a Titian Venus, while Irma sput¬ 
tered out her tale, with intermittent sobs. She rose upon 
her elbow, and planting it in her pillow, took half-a-dozen 
pulfs of a cigarette, and then requested Irma to ring for her 
maid. “ Do nothing till you see me again,” she said; “ and 
take my advice: always get to bed before midnight, or you’ll 
have unmanageable wrinkles in a couple of years. If you 
had been in bed at a prudent hour to-night, this scandal 
would not have occurred.” 

“ How can I be in bed ? How could I help it ?” moaned 
Irma, replying to the abstract rule, and the perplexing illus¬ 
tration of its force. 

Violetta dismissed her. “ After all, my wish is to save 
my poor Amaranto,” she mused. “ I am only doing now 


THE SHADOW OP CONSPIRACY. 


453 


what I should have heen doing in the daylight; and if I 
can’t stop him, the Government must; and they will. 
Whatevdl* the letter contained, I can anticipate it. He 
knows my profession and my necessities. I must have 
money. Why not from the rich German woman whom he 
jilted ?’* 

She attributed Anna’s apparent passion of revenge to a 
secret passion of unrequited love. What else was implied 
by her willingness to part with land and money for the key 
to his machinations ? 

Violetta would have understood a revenge directed against 
Angelo Guidascarpi, as the slayer of Anna’s brother. But 
of him Anna had only inquired once, and carelessly, whether 
he was in Milan. Anna’s mystical semi-patriotism—prompted 
by her hatred of Vittoria, hatred of Carlo as Angelo’s cousin 
and protector, hatred of the Italy which held the three, w'ho 
never took the name Tedesco on their tongues without loath¬ 
ing—was perfectly hidden from this shrewd head. 

Some extra patrols were in the streets. As she stepped 
into the carriage, a man rushed up, speaking hoarsely and 
inarticulately, and jumped in beside her. She had discerned 
Barto Rizzo in time to give directions to her footman, before 
she was addressed by a body of gendarmes in pursuit, whom 
ehe mystified by entreating them to enter her house and 
search it through, if they supposed that any evil-doer had 
taken advantage of the open door. They informed her that 
a man had escaped from the civil prison. “ Poor creature !” 
suid the countess, with womanly pity; “ but you must see 
that he is not in my house. How could three of you let one 
escape ?” She drove oif laughing at their vehement asser¬ 
tion that he would not have escaped from them. Barto 
Rizzo made her conduct him to Countess Ammiani’s gates. 
Violetta was frightened by his eyes when she tried to per¬ 
suade him in her best coaxing manner to avoid Count 
Ammiani. In fact she apprehended that he would be very 
111 uch in her way. She had no time for chagrin at her loss 
of power over him, though she was sensible of vexation. 
Barto folded his arms and sat with his head in his chest, 
silent, till they reached the gates, when he said in French, 
“ Madame, I am a nameless person in your train. Gabble !” 
ho added, when the countess advised him not to enter; nor 
would he allow her to precede him by more than one step. 


454 


VITTORIA. 


Violetta sent np tier name. The man had shaken her nerves. 
“ At least, remember that your appearance should be decent,’* 
she said, catching sight of blood on his hands, and torn gar¬ 
ments. “ I expect, madame,” he replied, “ I shall not have 
time to wash before I am laid out. My time is short. I 
want tobacco. The washing can be done by-and-by, but not 
the smoking.” 

They were ushered up to the reception-room, ^ where 
Countess Am'miani, Vittoria, and Carlo sat, awaiting the 
visitor whose unexpected name, cast in their midst at so 
troubled a season, had clothed her with some of the mid¬ 
night’s terrors. 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN. 

Bahto Rizzo had silence about him without having to ask 
for it, when he followed Violetta into Countess Ammiani’s 
saloon of reception. Carlo was leaning over his mother’s 
chair, holding Vittoria’s wrist across it, and so enclosing her, 
while both young faces were raised to the bowled forehead of 
the countess. They stood up. Violetta broke through the 
formal superlatives of an Italian greeting. “ Speak to me 
alone,’.’ she murmured for Carlo’s ear : and glancing at Barto: 
“ Here is a madman; a mild one, I trust.” She contrived 
to show that she was not responsible for his intrusion. 
Countess Ammiani gathered Vittoria in her arms; Carlo 
stepped a pace before them. Terror was on the venerable 
lady’s face, wrath on her son’s. As he fronted Barto, ho 
motioned a finger to the curtain hangings, and Violetta, 
quick at reading signs, found his bare sw'ord there. “ But 
you will not want it,” she remarked, handing the hilt to him, 
and softly eyeing the impression of her warm touch on the 
steel as it passed. 

“ Carlo, thou son of Paolo ! Countess Marcellina, wife of a 
true patriot! stand aside, both of you. It is between the 
Countess Alessandra and myself,” so the man commenced, 
with his usual pomp of interjection. “ Swords and big eyes 




THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN. 


4.55 


—are they things to stop me P* Barto laughed scornfully. 
He had spoken in the full roll of his voice, and the sword 1 
was hard back for the thrust. 

Vittoria disengaged herself from the countess. “ Speak 
to me,” she said, dismayed by the look of what seemed an 
exaltation of madness in Barta’s visage, but firm as far as 
the trembling of her limbs would let her be. > 

He dropped to her feet and kissed them. 

“ Emilia Alessandra Belloni! Vittoria ! Countess Ales- 
sandra Ammiani ! pity me. Hear this :—I hated you as the 
devil is hated. Yesterday I woke up in prison to hear that 
I must adore you. God of all the pits of punishment! was 
there ever one like this ? I had to change heads.” 

It was the language of a distorted mind, and lamentable to 
hear when a sob shattered his voice. 

“ Am I mad ?” he asked piteously, clasping his temples. 

“You are as we are, if you weep,” said Vittoria, to sooth 
him. 

“ Then I have heen mad!” he cried, starting. “ I knew 
you a wicked virgin—signora contessa, confess to me, mar* 
riage has changed you. Has it not changed you ? In the 
name of the Father of the Saints, help me out of it:—my 
brain reels backwards. You were false, but marriage—it acts 
in this way wdth you women; yes, that w'e know—you were 
married, and you said, ‘How let us be faithful.’ Did you 
not say that ? I am forgiving, though none think it. You 
have only to confess. If you will not,—oh!” He smote his 
face, groaning. 

Carlo spoke a stern word in an undertone, counselling him 
to be gone. 

“ If you will not—what was she to do ?” Barto cut the 
question to interrogate his strayed wits. “ Look at me, 
Countess Alessandra. I was in the prison. I heard that my 
Kosellina had a tight heart. She cried for her master, poor 
heathen, and I sprang out of the walls to her. There—there 
-—she lay like a breathing board; a woman with a body like 
a coffin half alive; not an eye to show; nothing but a body 
and a whisper. She perished righteously, for she disobeyed. 
She acted without my orders : she dared to think 1 She will 
be damned, for she would have vengeance before she went. 
She glorified you over me—over Barto Rizzo. Oh I she 
shocked my soul. But she is dead, and I am her slave. 


456 


VITTORIA. 


Every word was of yon. Take anotlier tead, Barto Rizzo: 
your old one was mad: slie said that to my soul. She died 
blessing you above me. I saw the last bit of life go up from 
her mouth blessing you. It’s heard by this time in heaven, 
and it’s written. Then I have had two years of madness. 
If she is right, I was wrong ;'I was a devil of hell. I know 
there’s an eye given to dying creatures, and she looked with 
it, and she said, the soul of Rinaldo Guidascarpi, her angel, 
was glorifying you; and she thanked the sticking of her 
heart, when she tried to stab you, poor fool!” 

Carlo interrupted: ‘‘hTow go ; you have said enough.” 

“ Ho, let him speak,” said Vittoria. She supposed that 
Barto was going to say that he had not given the order for 
her assassination. “ You do not wish me dead, signore ?” 

“ Nothing that is not standing in my way, signora contessa,” 
said Barto ; and his features blazed with a smile of happy 
self-justification. “ I have killed a sentinel this night: Pro¬ 
vidence placed him there. I wish for no death, but I 
punish, and—ah! the cursed sight of the woman who calls 
me mad for two years. She thrusts a bar of iron in an 
engine at work, and says. Work on ! work on! Were you 
not a traitress ? Countess Alessandra, were you not once 
a traitress ? Oh ! confess it; save my head. Reflect, dear 
lady 1 it’s cruel to make a man of a saintly sincerity 
look back—I count the months—seventeen months 1 to look 
back seventeen months, and see that his tongue was a 
clapper,—his will, his eyes, his ears, all about him, every¬ 
thing, stirred like a pot on the fire. I traced you. I saw 
your treachery. I said—I, I am her Day of Judgement. 
She shall look on me and perish, struck down by her own 
treachery. Were my senses false to me? I had lived in 
virtuous fidelity to my principles. Hone can accuse me. 
Why were my senses false, if my principles were true ? I 
said you were a traitress. I saw it from the first. I had 
the divine contempt for women. My distrust of a woman 
was the eye of this brain, and I said—Pollow her, dog her, 
find her out 1 I proved her false ; but her devilish cunning 
deceived every other man in the world. Oh ! let me bellow, 
for it’s me she proves the mass of corruption 1 To-morrow 
I die, and if I am mad now, what sort of a curse is that ? 
How to-morrow is an hour—a laugh ! But if I’ve not been 
shot from a true bow—if I’ve been a sham for two years—if 


THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN. 


457 


my name, and nature, bones, brains, were all false things 
hunting a shadow. Countess Alessandra, see the misery of 
llarto Rizzo ! Look at those two years, and say that I had 
my head. Answer me, as you love your husband: are you 
heart and soul with him in the fresh fight for Lombardy 

He said this with a look penetrating and malignant, and 
then by a sudden flash pitifully entreating. 

Carlo feared to provoke, revolted from the thought of 
slaying him. “Yes, yes,” he interposed, “ my wife is heart 
and soul in it. Go.” 

Barto looked from him to her with the eyes of a dog that 
awaits an order. 

Vittoria gathered her strength, and said: 

“ I am not.” 

“ It is her answer 1” Barto roared, and from deep dejec¬ 
tion his whole countenance radiated. “ She says it—she 
might give the lie to a saint! I was never mad. I saw the 
spot, and put my finger on it, and not a madman can do that. 
]\ly two years are my own. Mad now, for, see! I worship 
the creature. She is not heart and soul in it. She is not 
in it at all. She is a little woman, a lovely thing, a toy, a 
cantatrice. Joy to the big heart of Barto Rizzo I I am for 
Brescia !” 

He flung his arm like a banner, and ran out. 

Carlo laid his sword on a table. Yittoria’s head was on 
his mother’s bosom. 

The hour was too full of imminent grief for either of the 
three to regard this scene as other than a gross intrusion 
ended. 

“ Why did you deny my words ?” Carlo said coldly. 

“ I could not lie to make him wretched,” she replied in 
a low murmur. 

“ Do you know what that ‘ I am for Brescia ’ means ? 
He goes to stir the city before a soul is ready.” 

“ I warned you that I should speak the truth of myself 
to-night, dearest.” 

“You should discern between speaking truth to a mad¬ 
man, and to a man.” 

Vittoria did not lift her eyes, and Carlo beckoned to 
Violetta, with whom he left the room. 

“ He is angry,” Countess Ammiani murmured. “ IMy 
child, you cannot deal with men in a fever unless you learn 


458 


VITTORlA. 


to dissemble; and there is exemption for doing it, both in 
plain sense, and in our religion. If I could arrest him, I 
would speak boldly. It is, alas ! vain to dream of that; and 
it is therefore an unkindness to cause him iiTitation. Carlo 
has given way to you by allowing you to be hJ^re when his 
friends assemble. He knows your intention to speak. He 
has done more than would have been permitted by my hus¬ 
band to me, though I too was well-beloved.” 

Yittoria continued silent that her head might be cherished 
where it lay. She was roused from a stupor by hearing 
new voices. Laura’s lips came pressing to her cheek. 
Colonel Corte, Agostino, Marco Sana, and Angelo Guida- 
scarpi, saluted her. Angelo she kissed. 

“ That lady should be abed and asleep,” Corte was heard 
to say. 

The remark passed without notice. Angelo talked apart 
with Yittoria. He had seen the dying of the woman whose 
hand had been checked in the act of striking by the very 
passion of animal hatred which raised it. He spoke of her 
affectionately, attesting to the fact that Barto Rizzo had not 
prompted her guilt. Yittoria moaned at a short outline 
that he gave of tiie last minutes between those two, in 
which her name was dreadfully and fatally, incomprehen¬ 
sibly prominent. 

All were waiting impatiently for Carlo’s return. 

When he appeared he led Yittoria before the men—with 
some touch of scenic irony, as Agostino thought, for it was 
foreign to his habitual manner—and presented the person 
to whom they were indebted. Yioletta coloured, but kept 
her composure. 

“ Countess Yioletta will do us the honour to take her 
chamber in this house till I start,” Carlo whispered to his 
mother. 

Yioletta stooped to intercede, and Countess Ammiani lent 
her a more willing ear. 

“ She would like to go to it immediately,” said Carlo; 
whereupon his mother rose, and the two ladies withdrew in 
the stiff way that women have when they move under con¬ 
straint. 

Agostino slapped his shoulder, calling him Duke of 
Ferrara, and a name or two of the princely domestio 
tyrants. 


THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN. 


459 


It was a meeting for the final disposition of things before 
the outbreak. Carlo had begun to speak when Corte drew 
his attention to the fact that ladies were present, at which 
Carlo put out his hand as if introducing them, and went on 
speaking. 

“ Your wife is here,” said Corte. 

“ Mj wife and Signora Piaveni,” Carlo rejoined. “ I have 
consented to mj wife’s particular wish to be present.” 

“ The Signora Piaveni’s opinions are known : your wife’s 
are not.” 

“ Countess Alessandra shares mine,” said Laura, rather 
tremulously. 

Countess Ammiani at the same time returned and took 
Vittoria’s hand and pressed it with force. Carlo looked at 
them both. 

“ I have to ask your excuses, gentlemen. My wife, my 
mother, and Signora Piaveni, have served the cause we 
worship sufficiently to claim a right—I am sorry to use such 
phrases; you understand my meaning. Permit them to 
remain. I have to tell you that Barto Rizzo has been here : 
he has started for Brescia. I should have had to kill him to 
stop him—a measure that I did not undertake.” 

“ Being your duty ! ” remarked Corte. 

Agostino corrected him with a sarcasm. 

“ I cannot allow the presence of ladies to exclude a com¬ 
ment on manifest indifference,” said Corte. “ Pass on to the 
■ details, if you h^ve any.” 

“ The details are these,” Carlo resumed, too proud to show 
a shade of self-command ; “ my cousin Angelo leaves Milan 
before morning. You, Colonel Corte, will be in Bergamo at 
noon to-morrow. Marco and Angelo will await my coming 
in Brescia, where we shall find Giulio and the rest. I join 
them at five on the following afternoon, and my arrival 
signals the revolt. We have decided that the new^s from the 
king’s army is good.” 

A perceptible shudder in Vittoria’s frame at this conclud¬ 
ing sentence caught Corte’s eye. 

“Are you dissatisfied with that arrangement?” he 
addressed her boldly. 

“ I am. Colonel Corte,” she replied. So simple was the 
answering tone of her voice that Corte had not a word. 

“ It is my husband who is going,” Vittoria spoke on 


4G0 


VITTOEIA. 


steadily; “ him I am prepared to sacrifice, as I am myself. 
If lie thinks it right to throw himself into Brescia, nothing 
is left for me but to thank him for having done me the 
honour to consult me. His will is firm. I trust to God that 
he is wise. I look on him now as one of many brave men 
whose lives belong to Italy, and if they all are misdirected 
and perish, we have no more ; we are lost. The King is on 
the Ticino ; the Chief is in Rome. I desire to entreat you 
to take counsel before you act in anticipation of the king’s 
fortune. I see that it is a crushed life in Lombardy. In 
Rome there is one who can lead and govern. He has suffered 
and is calm. He calls to you to strengthen his hands. My 
prayer to you is to take counsel. I know the hour is late; 
but it is not too late for wisdom. Forgive me if I am not 
speaking humbly. Brescia is but Brescia; Rome is Italy. 
I have understood little of my country until these last days, 
though I have both talked and sung of her glories. I know 
that a deep duty binds you to Bergamo and to Brescia—poor 
Milan we must not think of. You are not personally 
pledged to Rome : yet Rome may have the greatest claims 
on you. The heart of our country is beginning to beat there. 
Colonel Corte! Signor Marco ! my Agostino! my cousin 
Angelo! it is not a woman asking for the safety of her 
husband, but one of the blood of Italy who begs to offer you 
her voice, without seeking to disturb your judgement.” 

She ceased. 

“Without seeking to disturb their judgement!” cried 
Laura. “ Why not, when the judgement is in error ?” 

To Laura’s fiery temperament Vittoria’s speech had been 
feebleness. She was insensible to that which the men felt 
conveyed to them by the absence of emotion in the language 
of a woman so sorrowfully placed. “ Wait,” she said, “wait 
for the news from Carlo Alberto, if you determine to play at 
swords and guns in narrow streets.” She spoke long and 
vehemently, using irony, coarse and fine, with the eloquence 
which was her gift. In conclusion she apostrophized Colonel 
Corte as one who had loved him might have done. He was 
indeed that figure of indomitable strength to which her 
spirit, exhausted by intensity of passion, clung more than to 
jiny other on earth, though she did not love him, scarcely 
liked him. 

Corte asked her curiously—for she had surprised and 


THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN. 


461 


vexed his softer side—why she distinguished him with 
such remarkable phrases only to declare her contempt for 
him. 

“ It’s the flag whipping the flag-pole,” murmured Agos- 
tino; and he now spoke briefly in support of the expedition 
to Rome; or at least in favour of delay until the King of 
Sardinia had gained a battle. While he was speaking, 
Merthyr entered the room, and behind him a messenger who 
brought word that Bergamo had risen. 

The men drew hurriedly together, and Countess Ammiani, 
Vittoria, and Laura stood ready to leave them. 

“ You will give me five minutes ?” Vittoria whispered to 
her husband, and he nodded. 

“ Merthyr,” she said, passing him, ‘‘ can I have your word 
that you will not go from me ?” 

Merthyr gave her his word after he had looked on her 
face. 

“ Send to me every two hours, that I may kj'ow you are 
near,” she added; “ do not fear waking me. Or, no, dear 
friend ; why should I have any concealment from you ? Be 
not a moment absent, if you would not have me fall to the 
ground a second time : follow me.” 

Even as he hesitated, for he had urgent stuff to communi¬ 
cate to Carlo, he could see a dreadful whiteness rising on her 
face, darkening the circles of her eyes. 

“ It’s life or death, my dearest, and I am bound to live,** 
she said. Her voice sprang up from tears. 

Merthyr turned and tried in vain to get a hearing among 
the excited, voluble men. They shook his hand, patted his 
shoulder, and counselled him to leave them. He obtained 
Carlo’s promise that he would not quit the house without 
granting him an interview ; after which he passed out to 
Vittoria, where Countess Ammiani and Laura sat weeping 
by the door. 


462 


VITTORIA. 


CHAPTER XLiy. 

THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND. 

When they were alone Merthyr said: “ I cannot give 
many minutes, not much time. I have to speak to your 
husband.” 

She answered: “ Give me many minutes—much time. All 
other speaking is vain here.” 

“ It concerns his safety.” 

“ It will not save him.” 

“ But I have evidence that he is betrayed. His plans are 
known ; a trap is set for him. If he moves, he walks into a 
pit.” 

“ You would talk reason, Merthyr,” Vittoria sighed. 

Talk it to me. I can listen ; I thirst for it. I beat at the 
bars of a cage all day. When I saw you this afternoon, I 
looked on another life. It was too sudden, and I swooned. 
That was my only show of weakness. Since then you are 
the only strength I feel.” 

“ Have they all become Barto Rizzos ?” Merthyr ex¬ 
claimed. 

“ Beloved, I will open my mind to you,” said Vittoria. 
“ I am cowardly, and I thought I had such courage! To¬ 
night a poor mad creature has been here, who has oj^pressed 
me, I cannot say how long, with real fear—that I only un¬ 
derstand now that I know the little ground I had for it. I 
am even pleased that one like Barto Rizzo shoulo see me in 
a better light. I find the thought smiling in my heart when 
every other thing is utterly dark there. You have heard 
that Carlo goes to Brescia. When I was married, I lost 
sight of Italy, and everything but happiness. I suffer as I 
deserve for it now. I could have turned my husband from 
this black path; I preferred to dream and sing. I would 
not see—it was my pride that would not let me see his error. 
My cowardice would not let me wound him with a single 
suggestion. You say that he is betrayed. Then he is be¬ 
trayed by the woman who has never been unintelligible to 
me. We were in Turin surrounded by intrigues, and there 
I thanked her so much for leaving me the days with my 


THE WIFE ANE TEE HUSIANP. 


463 


hi:csbaiid by Lake Orta that I did not seek to open his eyes 
to her. We came to Milan, and here I have been thanking 
her for the happy days in Turin. Carlo is no longer to 
blame if he will not listen to me. I have helped to teach 
him that I am no better than auy of these Italian women 
whom he despises. I spoke to him as his wife should do, at 
last. He feigned to think me jealous, and I too remember 
the words of the reproach, as if they had a meaning. Ah, 
my friend! I would say of nothing that it is impossible, ex¬ 
cept this task of recovering lost ground with one who is 
young. Experience of trouble has made me older than he. 
When he accused me of jealousy, I could mention Countess 
d’Isorella’s name no more. I confess to that. Yet I knew 
my husband feigned. I knew that he could not conceive the 
idea of jealousy existing in me, as little as I could imagine 
unfaithfulness in him. But my lips would not take her 
name! Wretched cowardice cannot go farther. I spoke of 
Rome. As often as I spoke, that name was enough to shake 
me off: he had but to utter it, and I became dumb. He did 
it to obtain peace; for no other cause. So, by degrees, I have 
learnt the fatal truth. He has trusted her, for she is very 
skilful; distrusting her, for she is treacherous. He has, 
therefore, believed excessively in his ability to make use or 
her, and to counteract her baseness. I saw his error from 
the first; and I went on dreaming and singing; and now this 
night has come!” 

Vittoria shadowed her eyes. 

“ I will go to him at once,” said Merthyr. 

“ Yes • I am relieved. Go, dear friend,” she sobbed; you 
ha.ve given me tears, as I hoped. You will not turn him ; 
had it been possible, could I have kept you from him so 
lono* ? I kno'w that you will not turn him from hi^s purpose, 
for I know what a weight it is that presses him for^rd m 
that path. Do not imagine our love to be broken. He wi 1 
convince you that it is not. He has the nature of ^ 

He permitted me to speak before these 
thing that I am! It was a last effort. 


I might as well have 


tried to push a rock.” i. n i 

She rose at a noise of voices in the hall oelow. 

“ They are going, Merthyr. See him now. There may be 
help in Laven; if one could think it! If help were given to 


464 


VITTOEIA. 


this country—if help Tvere only visible! The want of it 
makes us all without faith.” 

“ Hush ! you may hear good news from Carlo Alberto in a 
few hours,” said Merthyr. 

“ Ask Laura; she has witnessed how he can be shattered,” 
Yittoria replied bitterly. 

Merthyr pressed her fingers. He was met by Carlo on the 
stairs. 

“ Quick !” Carlo said ; “ I have scarce a minute to spare. 
I have my adieux to make, and the tears have set in already. 
First, a request: you will promise to remain beside my wife; 
she will want more than her own strength.” 

Such a request, coming from an Italian husband, was so 
great a proof of the noble character of his love and his 
knowledge of the woman he loved, that Merthyr took him 
in his arms and kissed him. 

“ Get it over quickly, dear good fellow,” Carlo murmured ; 
“ you have something to tell me. Whatever it is, it’s air; 
but I’ll listen.” ^ 

They passed into a vacant room. 

“ You know you are betrayed,” Merthyr began. 

Hot exactly that,” said Carlo, humming carelessly. 

“ Positively and absolutely. The Countess d’Isorella has 
sold your secrets.” 

“ I commend her to the profit she has made by it.” 

“Do you play with your life ?” 

Carlo was about to answer in the tone he had assumed 
for the interview. He checked the laugh on his lips. 

“ She must have some regard for my life, such as it’s 
worth, since, to tell you the truth, she is in the house now, 
and came here to give me fair warning.” 

“ Then, you trust her.” 

“ I ? Hot a single woman in the world!—that is, for a 
conspiracy.” 

It was an utterly fatuous piece of speech. Merthyr 
allowed it to slip, and studied him to see where he was 
vulnerable. 

“ She is in the house, you say. Will you cause her to 
come before me ?” 

“ Curiously,” said Carlo, “ I kept her for some purpose 
of the sort. Will I? and have a scandal now ? Oh! no. 
Let her sleep. 


THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND. 465 

Whether he spoke from noble-mindedness or indifference 
Merthyr could not guess. 

“ I have a message from your friend Luciano. He sends 
you his love, in case he should be shot the first, and says 
that when Lombardy is free he hopes you will not forget 
old comrades who are in Home.” 

“ Forget him! I would to God I could sit and talk of him 
for hours. Luciano ! Luciano ! He has no wife.” 

Carlo spoke on hoarsely. “ Tell me what authority you 
have for charging Countess dTsorella with . . . with what¬ 
ever it may be.’' 

“ A conversation between Countess Anna of Lenkenstein 
and a Major Hagen, in the Duchess of Graatli’s house, was 
overheard by our Beppo. They spoke German. The rascal 
had a German sweetheart with him. She imprisoned him 
for some trespass, and had come stealing in to rescue him, 
when those two entered the room. Countess Anna detailed 
to Hagen the course of your recent plotting. She named the 
hour this morning when you are to start for Brescia. She 
stated wHat force you have, what arms you expect; she 
named you all.” 

“ Hagen—Hagen,” Carlo repeated; “ the man’s unknown 
to me.” 

“ It’s sufficient that he is an Austrian officer.” 

“ Quite. She hates me, and she has reason, for she’s 
aware that I mean to fight her lover, and choose my time. 
The blood of my friends is on that man’s head.” 

“ I wdll finish what I have to say,” pursued Merthyr. 
“ When Beppo had related as much as he could make out 
from his sweetheart’s translation, I went straight to the 
duchess. She is an Austrian, and a good and reasonable 
woman. She informed me that a letter addressed by Countess 
Anna to Countess d’Isorella fell into her hands this night. 
She burnt it unopened. I leave it to you to consider whether 
you have been betrayed and who has betrayed you. The 
secret was bought. Beppo himself caught the words, ‘ from 
a mercenary Italian.’ The duchess tells me that Countess 
Anna is in the habit of alluding to Countess d’Isorella in 
those terms.” 

Carlo stretched his arms like a man who cannot hide the 
yawning fit. 

2 H 


468 


YITTORIA. 


“ I promised my wife five minutes, though, we have had 
the worst of the parting over. Perhaps you will wait for 
me; I may have a word to say.” 

He was absent for little more than the space named. 
When he returned, he was careful to hide his face. He 
locked the door, and leading Merthyr to an inner room, laid 
his watch on the table, and said: “ How, friend, you will 
see that I have nothing to shrink from, for I am going to 
do execution upon myself, and before him whom I would, 
above all other men, have think well of me. My wife sup¬ 
poses that I am pledged to this Brescian business because 
I am insanely patriotic. If I might join Luciano to-morrow 
I would shout like a boy. I would be content to serve as 
the lowest in the ranks, if I might be with you all under the 
Chief. Home crowns him, and Brescia is my bloody ditch, 
and it is deserved! When I was a little younger—I am a 
boy still, no doubt—I had the honour to be distinguished by 
a handsome woman ; and when I grew a little older, I dis¬ 
covered by chance that she had wit. The lady is the Coun¬ 
tess Violetta dTsorella. It is a grief to me to know that she 
is sordid : it hurts my vanity the more. Perhaps you begin 
to perceive that vanity governs me. The Signora Laura has 
not expressed her opinion on this subject with any reserve, 
but to Violetta belongs the merit of having seen it without' 
waiting for the signs. First—it is a small matter, but you 
are English—let me assure you that my wife has had no 
rival. I have taunted her with jealousy when I knew that 
it was neither in her nature to feel it, nor in mine to give 
reason for it. Ho man who has a spark of his Maker in him 
could be unfaithful to such a woman. When Lombardy was 
crushed, we were in the dust. I fancy we none of us knew 
how miserably we had fallen—we, as men. The purest—I 
daresay, the bravest—marched to Rome. God bless my 
Luciano there ! But I, sir, I, my friend, I, Merthyr, I said 
proudly that I would not abandon a beaten country: and I 
was admired for my devotion. The dear old poet, Agostino, 
praised me. It stopped his epigrams—during a certain time 
at least. Colonel Corte admired me. Marco Sana, Giulio 
Bandinelli admired me. Vast numbers admired me. I need 
not add that I admired myself. I plunged into intrigues 
with princes, and priests, and republicans. A clever woman 
was at my elbow. In the midst of all this, my marriage : I 


THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND. 


467 


had seven weeks of peace ; and then I saw what I was. 
You feel that you are tired, when you want to go another 
way: and you feel that you have been mad when you want 
to undo your work. But I could not break the chains I had 
wrought, for I was a chief of followers. The men had come 
from exile, or they had refused to join the Roman enter¬ 
prise :—they, in fact, had bound themselves to me ; and that 
means, I was irrevocably bound to them. I had an insult to 
wipe out: I refrain from doing it, sincerely, I may tell you, 
on the ground that this admired life of mine was precious. 
I will heap no more clumsy irony on it: I can pity it. Do 
you see now how I stand ? I know that I cannot rely on the 
king's luck or on the skill of his generals, or on the power of 
his army, or on the spirit in LomlDardy: neither on men nor 
on angels. But I cannot draw back. I have set going a 
machine that’s merciless. From the day it began working, 
every moment has added to its^^force. Do not judge me by 
your English eyes :—other lands, other habits ; other habits, 
other thoughts. And besides, if honour said nothing, simple 
humanity would preserve me from leaving my band to perish 
like a flock of sheep.” 

He uttered this with a profound conviction of his quality 
as leader that escaped the lurid play of self-inspection which 
‘characterized what he had previously spoken, and served 
singularly in bearing witness to the truth of his charge 
against himself. 

“ Useless ! ” he said, waving his hand at anticipated remon¬ 
strances. “ Look with the eyes of my country; not with 
your own, my friend. I am disgraced if I do not go out. 
My friends are disgraced if I do not head them in Brescia— 
sacrificed !—murdered !—how can I say what ? Can I live 
under disgrace or remorse ? The king stakes on his army ; 
I on the king. Whether he fights and wins, or fights and 
loses, I go out. I have promised my men—promised them 
success, 1 believe!—God forgive me ! Did you ever see a 
fated man before ? None had plotted against me. I have 
woven my own web, and that’s the fatal thing. I have a 
wife, the sweetest woman of her time. Good-night to her ! 
our parting is over.” 

He glanced at his watch. “ Perhaps she will be at the 
door below. Her heart beats like mine just now. You wish 
to say that you think me betrayed, and therefore I may 

2 H 2 


468 


VITTORIA. 


draw back ? Did you not hear that Bergamo has idsen ? 
The Brescians are up too by this time. Gallant Brescians ! 
they never belie the proverb in their honour; and to die 
among them ■would be sweet if I had all my manhood about 
me. Shall I call down Violetta dTsorella ? ” 

“ Yes ; see her; set the woman face to face with me ! ” 
cried Merthyr, sighting a gleam of hope. 

“ And have the poor wretch on her knees, and the house 
buzzing ?” Carlo smiled. “ Can she bear my burden 
though she be ten times guilty ? Let her sleep. The 
Brescians are up:—that’s an hour that has struck, and 
there’s no calling it to move a step in the rear. Brescia 
under the big Eastern hill which throws a cloak on it at sun¬ 
rise ! Brescia is always the eagle that looks over Lombardy! 
And Bergamo ! you know the terraces of Bergamo. Aren’t 
they like a morning sky ? Dying there is not death; it’s 
flying into the dawn. You Romans envy us. Come, confess 
it; you envy us. You have no Alps, no crimson hills, 
nothing but old walls to look on while you fight. Farewell, 
Merthyr Powys. I hear my servant’s foot outside. My horse 
is awaiting me saddled, a mile from the city. Perhaps I 
shall see my wife again at the door below, or in heaven. 
Addio! Kiss Luciano for me. Tell him that 1 knew myself 
as well as he did, before the end came. Enrico, Emilio, and 
the others—tell them I love them. I doubt if there will ever 
be but a ghost of me to fight beside them in Rome. And 
there’s no honour, Merthyr, in a ghost’s fighting, because 
he’s shot-proof; so I won’t say what the valiant disembodied 
I may do by-and-by.” 

He held his hands out, with the light soft smile of one 
who asks forgiveness for flippant speech, and concluded 
firmly: “ I have talked enough, and you are the man of 
sense I thought you ; for to give me advice is childish 
when no power on earth could make me follow it. Addio ! 
Kiss me.” 

They embraced. Merthyr said no more than that he 
would place messengers on the road to Brescia to carry news 
of the king’s army. His voice was thick, and when Carlo 
laughed at him, his sensations strangely reversed their 
situations. 

There were two cloaked figures at different points in the 
descent of the stairs. These rose severally at Carlo s 


PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 


469 


approacli, took him to their bosoms, and kissed him in 
silence. They were his mother and Laura. A third 
crouched by the door of the courtyard, which was his wife. 

Merthyr kept aloof until the heavy door rolled a long dull 
sound. Vittoria’s head was shawled over. She stood where 
her husband had left her, groping for him with one hand, 
that closed tremblingly hard on Merthyr when he touched 
it. Not a word was uttered in the house. 


CHAPTER XLY. 

SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 

Until daylight Merthyr sat by himself, trying to realize 
the progressive steps of the destiny which seemed like a 
visible hand upon Count Ammiani, that he might know it to 
be nothing else than Carlo’s work. He sat in darkness in 
the room where Carlo had spoken, thinking of him as living 
and dead. The brilliant life in Carlo protested against a 
possible fatal tendency in his acts so irrevocable as to plunge 
him to destruction when his head was clear, his blood cool, 
and a choice lay open to him. That brilliant young life, 
that fine face, the tones of Carlo’s voice, swept about Merthyr, 
accusing him of stupid fatalism. Grief stopped his answer 
to the charge ; but in his wise mind he knew Carlo to have 
surveyed things justly; and that the Fates are within us. 
Those which are the forces of the outer world are as shadows 
to the power we have created within us. He felt this 
because it was his gathered wisdom. Human compassion, 
and love for the unhappy youth, crushed it in his heart, and 
he marvelled how he could have been paralyzed when he 
had a chance of interceding. Can a man stay a torrent ? 
But a noble and fair young life in peril will not allow our 
philosophy to liken it to things of nature. The downward 
course of a fall that takes many waters till it rushes irre¬ 
sistibly is not the course of any life. Yet it is true that our 
destiny is of our own weaving. Carlo’s involvements cast 
him into extreme peril, almost certain death, unless he 



470 


VITTOEIA. 


abjured his honour, dearer than a life made precious by love. 
Merthyr saw that it was not vanity, but honour ; for Carlo 
stood pledged to lead a forlorn enterprise, the ripeness of 
his own scheming. In the imminent hour Carlo had recog¬ 
nized his position as Merthyr with the wisdom of years 
looked on it. That was what had paralyzed the older man, 
though he could not subsequently trace the cause. Thinking 
of the beauty of the youth, husband of the woman who was 
to his soul utterly an angel, Merthyr sat in the anguish of 
self-accusation, believing that some remonstrance, some 
insjDired word, might have turned him, and half dreading to 
sound his own heart, as if an evil knowledge of his nature 
haunted it. 

He rose up at last with a cry. The door opened, and 
Giacinta, Yittoria’s maid, appeared, bearing a lamp. She 
had been sitting outside, waiting to hear him stir before she 
intruded. He touched her cheek kindly, and thought that 
one could do little better than die, if need were, in the 
service of such a people. She said that her mistress was 
kneeling. She wished bo make coffee for him, and Merthyr 
let her do it, knowing the comfort there is to a woman in 
the ministering occupation of her hands. It was soon day¬ 
light. Beppo had not come back to the house. 

“Ho one has left the house ?” Merthyr asked. 

“ Hot since-” she answered convulsively. 

“ The Countess dTsorella is here 

“Yes, signore.” 

“ Asleep ?” he put the question mournfully, in remem¬ 
brance of Carlo’s “ Let her sleep !” 

“ Yes, signore; like the first night after confession.” 

“ She resides, I think, in the Corso Venezia. When she 
awakens, let her know that I request to have the honour of 
conducting her.” 

“ Yes, signore. Her carriage is still at the gates. The 
countess’s horses are accustomed to stand.” 

Merthyr knew this for an insinuation against his leaving, 
as well as against the lady’s character. 

“ Let your mistress be assured that I shall on no account 
be long absent at any time.” 

“ Signore, I shall do so,” said Giacinta. 

She brought him'word soon after, that Countess d’Isorella 
was stiiu'ing. Merthyr met Violetta on the stairs. 



PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 


471 


“ Can it be true ?” she accosted bim first. 

“ Count Ammiani has left for Brescia,” he replied. 

“ In spite of my warning ?” 

Merthyr gave space for her to pass into the room. She 
appeared undecided, saying that she had a dismal appre¬ 
hension of her not having dismissed her coachman over-night. 

“ In spite of my warning,” she murmured again, “ he has 
really gone ? Surely I cannot have slept more than three 
hours.” 

“ It was Count Ammiani’s wish that you should enjoy 
your full sleep undisturbed in his house,” said Merthyr. 
“ As regards your warning to him, he has left Milan per¬ 
fectly convinced of the gravity of a warning that comes 
from you.” 

Violetta shrugged lightly. “ Then all we have to do is 
to pray for the success of Carlo Alberto.” 

“ Oh ! pardon me, countess,” Merthyr rejoined, “ prayers 
may be useful, but you at least have something to do 
besides.” 

His eyes caught hers firmly as they were letting a wild 
look of interrogation fall on him, and he continued with 
perfect courtesy, “ You will accompany me to see Countess 
Anna of Lenkenstein. You have great influence, madame. 
It is not Count Ammiani’s request; for, as I informed you, 
it was his wish that you should enjoy your repose. The 
request is mine, because his life is dear to me. Hagen, I 
think, is the name of the Austrian officer who has started 
for Brescia.” 

She had in self-defence to express surprise while he spoke, 
which compelled her to meet his mastering sight and submit 
to a struggle of vision sufficient to show him that he had 
hit a sort of guilty consciousness. Otherwise she was not 
discomposed, and with marvellous sagacity she accepted the 
forbearance he assumed, not affecting innocence to challenge 
it, as silly criminals always do when they are exposed, but 
answering quite in the tone of innocence, and so throwing 
the burden by an appearance of mutual consent on some 
unnamed third person. 

“ Certainly; let us go to Countess Anna of Lenkenstein, 
if you think fit. I have to rely on your judgement. I quite 
abjure my own. If I have to plead for anything, I am going 
before a woman, remember.” 


472 


VITTOEIA. 


“ I do not forget it,” said Merthyr. 

“ The expedition to Brescia may be nnfortmiate,” she 
resumed hurriedly; “ I wish it had not been undertaken. 
At any rate, it rescues Count Ammiani from an expedition 
to Rome, and his slavish devotion to that priest-hating man 
whom he calls, or called, his Chief. At Brescia he is not 
outraging the head of our religion. That is a gain.” 

“A gain for him in the next world ?” said Merthyr. “ I 
believe that Countess Anna of Lenkenstein is also a fervent 
Catholic ; is she not ?” 

“ I trust so.” 

“ On behalf of her peace of mind, I trust so, too. In that 
case, she also must be a sound sleeper.” 

“We shall have to awaken her. What excuse—what am 
I to say to her ?” 

“ I beg you to wait for the occasion. Countess dTsorella. 
The words will come.” 

Violetta bit her lip. She had consented to this extra¬ 
ordinary step in an amazement. As she contemplated it 
now, it seemed worse than a partial confession and an appeal 
to his generosity. She broke out in pity for her horses ; in 
dread of her coachman, declaring that it was impossible for 
her to give him the order to drive her anywhere but home. 

“ With your permission, countess, I will undertake to give 
him the order,” said Merthyr. 

“ But have you no compassion. Signor Powys ? and you are 
an Englishman! I thought that Englishmen were excess¬ 
ively compassionate with horses.” 

“ They have been known to kill them in the service of their 
friends, nevertheless.” 

“ Well!”—Violetta had recourse to the expression of her 
shoulders—“and I am really to see Countess Anna ?” 

“ In my presence.” 

“ Oh ! that cannot be. Pardon me ; it is impossible. She 
will decline the scene. I say it with the utmost sincerity: 
I know that she will refuse.” 

“ Then, countess,” Merthyr’s face grew hard, “if I am not 
to be in your company to prompt you, allow me to instruct 
you beforehand.” 

Violetta looked at him eagerly, as one looks for tidings, 
with an involuntary beseeching quiver of the strained 
eyelids. 


PATHS OONVEPGING TO THE END. 473 

‘‘N’o irony!” she said, fearing horribly that he Tvas about 
to throw off the mask of irony. 

This desperate effort of her wits at the crisis succeeded. 

Merthyr, not knowing what design he had, hopeless of any 
definite end in tormenting the woman, and never having it 
in his mind merely to punish, was diverted by the exclama¬ 
tion to speak ironically. “You can tell Countess Anna that 
it is only her temporal sovereign who is attacked, and that 
therefore-he could not continue. 

“ Some affection ?” he murmured, in intense grief. 

His manly forbearance touched her whose moral wit was 
too blunt to apprehend the contempt in it. 

“Much affection—much!” Violetta exclaimed. “ I have 
a deep affection for Count Ammiani; an old friendship. 
Believe me 1 believe me ! I came here last night to save him. 
Anything on earth that I can do, I will do—on my honour; 
and do not smile at that—I have never pledged it without 
fulfilling the oath. I will not sleep while I can aid in pre¬ 
serving him. He shall know that I am not the base person 
he has conceived me to be. You, Signor Powys, are not a 
man to paint all women black that are a little less than 
celestial—are you ? I am told it is a ti’ick with your country¬ 
men ; and they have a poet who knew us ! I entreat you to 
confide in me. 1 am at present quite unaware that Count 
Ammiani runs particular—I mean personal—danger. He is 
in danger, of course; every one can see it. Bat, on my 
honour—and never in my life have I spoken so earnestly, my 
friends would hardly recognize me—I declare to you on my 
faith as a Christian lady, I am ignorant of any plot against 
him. I can take a Cross and kiss it, like a peasant, and swear 
to you by the Madonna that I know nothing of it.” 

She corrected her ardour, half-exulting in finding herself 
carried so far and so swimmingly on a tide of truth, half 
wondering whether the flowering beauty of her face in ex¬ 
citement had struck his sensibility. He was cold and specu¬ 
lative. 

“ Ah !” she said, “ if I were to ask my compatriots to put 
faith in a woman’s pure friendship for a man, I should know 
the answer; but you. Signor Powys, who have shown us that 
a man is capable of the purest friendship for a woman, 
should believe me.” 

He led her down to the gates, where her coachman sat 



474 


VITTOEIA. 


muffled in a three-quarter sleep. The word was given to 
drive to her own house; rejoiced hj which she called his 
attention deploringly to the condition of her horses, requesting 
him to say whether he could imagine them the best English, 
and confessing with regret, that she killed three sets a year— 
loved them well, notwithstanding. Merthyr saw enough of 
her to feel that she was one of the weak creatures who are 
strong through our greater weakness; and, either by intuition 
or quick wdt, too lively and too subtle to be caught by simplo 
suspicion. She even divined that reflection might tell him 
she had evaded hiip. by an artifice—a piece of gross cajolery; 
and said, laughing : “ Concerning friendship, I could offer it 
to a boy, like Carlo Ammiani; not to you. Signor Powjs. 
I know that I must check a youth, and I am on my guard. 
I should be eternally tormented to discover whether your 
armour was proof.” 

“ I dare say that a lady who had those torments would 
soon be able to make them mine,” said Merthyr. 

“You could not pay a fairer compliment to some one else,” 
she remarked. In truth, the candid personal avowal seemed 
to her to hold up Vittoria’s sacred honour in a crystal, and 
the more she thought of it, the more she respected him, for 
his shrewd intelligence, if not for his sincerity ; but on the 
whole she fancied him a loyal friend, not solely a clever 
maker of phrases; and she was pleased with herself for 
thinking such a matter possible, in spite of her education. 

“ I do most solemnly hope that you may not have to 
sustain Countess Alessandra under any affliction whatso¬ 
ever,” she said at parting. 

, Violetta had escaped an exposure—a rank and naked 
accusation of her character and deeds. She feared nothing 
but that, being quite indifferent to opinion ; a woman who 
would not have thought it preternaturally sad to have to 
walk as a penitent in the streets, with the provision of a 
very thick veil to cover her. She had escaped, but the 
moment she felt herself free, she w^as surprised by a sharp 
twinge of remorse. She summoned her maid to undress her, 
and smelt her favourite perfume, and lay in her bed, to 
complete her period of rest, closing her eyes there with a 
child’s faith in pillows. Flying lights and blood-blotches 
rushed within a span of her forehead. She met this symptom 
promptly with a medical receipt; yet she had no sleep; nor 


PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 


475 


would coffee give her sleep. Slie shrank from opium as 
deleterious to the constitution, and her mind settled on 
music as the remedy. Some time after her craving for it 
had commenced, an Austrian foot regiment, marching to the 
drum, passed under her windows. The fife is a merry 
instrument; fife and drum colour the images of battle gaily; 
but the dull ringing Austrian step-drum, beating unaccom¬ 
panied, strikes the mind with the real nature of battles, as 
the salt smell of powder strikes it, and more in horror, more 
as a child’s imagination realizes bloodshed, where the scene 
is a rolling heaven, black and red on all sides, with pitiable 
men moving up to the mouth of butchery, the insufferable 
flashes, the dark illumination of red, red of black, like a 
vision of the shadows Life and Death in a shadow-fight over, 
the dear men still living. Sensitive minds may be excited 
by a small stimulant to see such pictures. This regimental 
drum is like a song of the flat-headed savage in man. It 
has no rise or fall, but leads' to the bloody business wuth an 
unvarying note, and a savage’s dance in the middle of the 
rhythm. Violetta listened to it until her heart quickened 
with alarm lest she should be going to have a fever. She 
thought of Carlo Ammiani, and of the name of Nagen; she 
had seen him at the Lenkensteins. Her instant supposition 
was that Anna had perhaps paid heavily for the secret of 
Carlo’s movements on purpose to place Major Hagen on 
the Brescian highroad to capture him. Capture meant a 
dong imprisoment, if not execution. Partly for the sake of 
getting peace of mind—for she was shocked by her temporary 
inability to command repose—but with some hope of con¬ 
vincing Carlo that she strove to be of use to him, she sent 
for the spy Luigi, and at a cost of two hundred and twenty 
Austrian florins, obtained his promise upon oath to follow 
Count Ammiani into Brescia, if necessary, and deliver to 
him a letter she had written, wherein Hagen’s name was 
mentioned, and Carlo was advised to avoid personal risks; 
the letter hinted that he might have incurred a private 
enmity, and he had better keep among his friends. She 
knew the writing of this letter to be the foolishest thing she 
had ever done. Two hundred and twenty florins—the man 
originally stipulated to have three hundred—was a large 
sum to pay for postage. However, sacrifices must now and 


476 


VITTOEIA. 


then he made for friendship, and for sleep. When she had 
paid half the money, her mind was relieved, and she had 
the rest which preserves beauty. Luigi was to be paid the 
other half on his return. “ He may never return,” she 
thought, while graciously dismissing him. The deduction 
by mental arithmetic of the two hundred and twenty, or the 
one hundred and ten florins, from the large amount Countess 
Anna was bound to pay her in turn, annoyed her, though 
she knew it was a trifle. For this lady, Milan, Turin, and 
Paris sighed deeply. 

When he had left Violetta at her house in the Corso, 
Merthyr walked briskly for exercise, knowing that he would 
have need of his health and strength. He wanted a sight 
of Alps to wash out the image of the woman from his mind, 
and passed the old Marshal’s habitation fronting the 
Gardens, wishing that he stood in the field against the fine 
old warrior, for whom he had a liking. Hear the walls he 
discovered Beppo sitting pensively with his head between 
his two fists. Beppo had not seen Count Arnmiani, but he 
had seen Barto Rizzo, and pointing to the walls, said that 
Barto had dropped down there. He had met him hurrying 
in the Corso Francesco. Barto took him to the house of 
Sarpo, the bookseller, who possessed a small printing-press. 
Beppo described vividly, with his usual vivacity of illustra¬ 
tion, the stupefaction of the man at the apparition of his 
tormentor, whom he thought fast in prison; and how Barto 
had compelled him to print a proclamation to the Pied¬ 
montese, Lombards, and Venetians, setting forth that a 
battle had been fought South of the Ticino, and that Carlo 
Alberto was advancing on Milan, signed with the name of 
the Piedmontese Pole in command of the King’s army. A 
second, framed as an order of the day, spoke of victory and 
the planting of the green white and red banner on the 
Adige, and forward to the Isonzo. 

“ I can hear nothing of Carlo Alberto’s victory,” Beppo 
said ; “ no one has heard of it. Barto told us how the battle 
was fought, and the name of the young lieutenant who dis¬ 
covered the enemy’s flank march, and got the artillery down 
on him, and pounded him so that—signore, it’s amazing ! 
I’m ready to cry, and laugh, and howl!—fifteen thousand 
men capitulated in a heap !” 


PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 477 

“ Don’t you know you’ve been listening to a madman ?” 
paid Merthyr, irritated, and thoroughly angered to see 
BejDpo’s opposition to that view. 

“ Signore, Barto described the whole battle. It began at 
five o’clock in the morning.” 

“ When it was dark !” 

“Yes; when it was dark. He said so. And we sent up 
rockets, and caught the enemy coming on, and the cavalry 
of Alessandria fell upon two batteries of field guns and 
carried them off, and Colonel Romboni was shot in his back, 
and cries he, ‘ Best give up the ghost if you’re hit in the 
rear. Evviva I’ltalia !’ ” 

^ “ A Piedmontese colonel, you fool! he would have shouted 
‘ Viva Carlo Alberto!’ ” said Merthyr, now critically dis¬ 
gusted with the tale, and refusing to hear more. Two hours 
•later, he dispatched Beppo to Carlo in Brescia, warning him 
that for some insane purpose these two proclamations had 
been printed by Barto Rizzo, and that they were false. 

It was early on the morning of a second day, before sun¬ 
rise, when Vittoria sent for Merthyr to conduct her to the 
cathedral. “ There has been a battle,” she said. Her lips 
hardly joined to frame the syllables in speech. Merthyr 
refrained from asking where she had heard of the battle. 
As soon as the Duomo doors were open, he led her in and 
left her standing shrinking under the great vault with her 
neck fearfully drawn on her shoulders, as one sees birds 
under thunder. He thought that she was losing courage. 
Choosing to go out on the steps rather than look on her, he 
was struck by the sight of two horsemen, who proved to be 
Austrian officers, rattling at racing speed past the Duomo 
up the Corso. The sight of them made it seem possible that 
a battle had been fought. As soon as he was free, Merthyr 
went to the Duchess of Graiitli, from whom he had the news 
of Ho vara. The officers he had seen were Prince Radocky 
and Lieutenant Wilfrid Pierson, the old Marshal’s emissaries 
of victory. They had made a bet on the bloody field about 
reaching Milan first, and the duchess affected to be full of 
the humour of this bet in order to conceal her exultation. 
The Lenkensteins called on her; the Countess of Lenken- 
stein, Anna, and Lena; and they were less considerate, and 
drew their joy openly from the source of his misery—a 
dreadful house for Merthyr to remain in, but he hoped to 


478 


VITTOEIA. 


see Wilfrid, having heard the duchess rally Lena concerning 
the deeds of the white umbrella, which, Lena said, was 
pierced with balls, and had been preserved for her. “ The 
dear foolish fellow insisted on marching right into the midst 
of the enemy with his absurd white umbrella ; and wherever 
there was danger the men were seen following it. Prince 
Radocky told me the whole army was laughing. How he 
escaped .death was a miracle!” She spoke uij^alfectedly of 
her admiration for the owner, and as Wilfrid came in she 
gave him brilliant eyes. He shook Merthyr’s hand without 
looking at him. The ladies w^ould talk of nothing but the 
battle, so he went up to Merthyr, and under pretext of an 
eager desire for English news, drew him away. 

“ Her husband was not there ? not at Novara, I mean?” 
he said. 

“ He’s at Brescia,” said Merthyr. 

“Well, thank goodness he didn’t stand in those ranks!” 
Wilfrid murmured, puffing thoughtfully over the picture 
they presented to his memory. 

Merthyr then tried to hint to him that he had a sort of 
dull suspicion of Carlo’s being in personal danger, but of 
what kind he could not say. He mentioned Weisspriess by 
name ; and Nagen; and Countess Anna. Wilfrid said, “ I’ll 
find out if there’s anything, only don’t be fancying it. The 
man’s in a bad hole at Brescia. Weisspriess, I believe, is at 
Verona. He’s an honourable fellow. The utmost he would 
do would be to demand a duel; and I’m sure he’s heartily 
sick of that work. Besides, he and Countess Anna have 
quarrelled. Meet me ;—by the way, you and I musn’t be seen 
meeting, I suppose. The duchess is neutral ground. Come 
here to-night. And don’t talk of me, but say that a friend 
asks how she is, and hopes—the best things you can say for 
me. I must go up to their confounded chatter again. Tell 
her there’s no fear, none whatever. You all hate us, natur¬ 
ally ; but you know that Austrian officers are gentlemen. 
Don’t speak my name to her just yet. Unless, of course, 
she should happen to allude to me, which is unlikely. I had 
a dismal idea that her husband was at Novara.” 

The tender-hearted duchess sent a message to Vittoria, 
bidding her not to forget that she had promised her at 
IMoran to ‘ love her always.’ 

“ And tell her,” she said to Merthyr, “ that I do not think 


PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 


479 


I sliall have my rooms open for the concert to-morrow night. 
I prefer to let Antonio-Pericles go mad. She will not surely 
consider that she is bound by her promise to him ? He drags 
poor Irma from place to place to make sure the miserable 
child is not plotting to destroy his concert, as that man 
Sarpo did. Irma is half dead, and hasn’t the courage to 
offend him. She declares she depends upon him for her 
English reputation. She has already caught a violent cold, 
and her sneezing is frightful. I have never seen so abject a 
creature. I have no compassion at the sight of her.” 

That night Merthyr heard from Wilfrid that a plot against 
Carlo Ammiani did exist. He repeated things he had heard 
pass between Countess d’Isorella and Irma in the chamber of 
Pericles before the late battle. Modestly confessing that he 
was ‘ for some reasons ’ in high favour with Countess Lena, 
he added that after a long struggle he had brought her 
to confess that her sister had sworn to have Countess Ales- 
sandra Ammiani begging at her feet. 

By mutual consent they went to consult the duchess. She 
repelled the notion of Austrian women conspiring. “ An 
Austrian noble lady—do you think it possible that she would 
act secretly to serve a private hatred ? Surely I may ask 
you, for my sake, to think better of us ?” 

Merthyr showed her an opening to his ground by suggest¬ 
ing that Anna’s antipathy to Yittoria might spring more 
from a patriotic than a private source. 

“ Oh! I will certainly make inquiries, if only to save 
Anna’s reputation with her enemies,” the duchess answered 
rather proudly. 

It would have been a Novara to Pericles if Yittoria had re¬ 
fused to sing. He held the pecuniarily-embarrassed duchess 
sufficiently in his power to command a concert at her house ; 
his argument to those who pressed him to spare Yittoria in 
a season of grief running seriously, with visible contempt of 
their intellects, thus: “A great voice is an ocean. You 
cannot drain it with forty dozen opera-hats. It is something 
found—an addition to the wealth of this life. Shall we not 
en]oy what we find ? You do not wear out a picture by 
looking at it; likewise you do not wear out a voice by listen¬ 
ing to it. A bird has wingshere is a voice. Why were 
they given ? I should say, to go into the air. Ah ; but not 
if grandmother is ill. What is a grandmother to the wings 


480 


VITTORIA. 


and the voice ? If to sing would kill,—yes, then let the 
puny thing be silent! But Sandra Belloni has a soul that 
has not a husband— except her Art. Her body is husbanded; 
but her soul is above her body. You would treat it as below. 
Art is her soul’s husband ! Besides, I have her promise. 
She is a girl who will go up to a loaded gun’s muzzle if she 
gives her word. And besides, her husband may be shot to¬ 
morrow. So, all she sings now is clear gain.” 

Vittoria sent word to him that she would sing. 

In the meantime a change had come upon Countess Anna. 
Weisspriess, her hero, appeared at her brother’s house, fresh 
from the field of Hovara, whither he had hurried from 
Verona on a bare pretext that was a breach of military dis¬ 
cipline requiring friendly interposition in high quarters. 
Unable to obtain an audience with Count Lenkenstein, he 
remained in the hall, hoping for things which he affected to 
care nothing for; and so it chanced that he saw Lena, who 
was mindful that her sister had suffered much from passive 
jealousy when Wilfrid returned from the glorious field, and 
led him to Anna, that she also might rejoice in a hero. 
Weisspriess did not refrain from declaring on the way that 
he would rather charge against a battery. Some time after, 
Anna lay in Lena’s arms, sobbing out one of the wildest con¬ 
fessions ever made by woman:—she adored Weisspriess; 
she hated Hagen; but was miserably bound to the man she 
hated. “ Oh ! now I know what love is.” She repeated this 
with transparent enjoyment of the opposing sensations by 
whose shock the knowledge was revealed to her. 

“ How can you be bound to Major Hagen ?” asked Lena. 

“ Oh ! why ? except that I have been possessed by devils,’* 
Anna moaned. “ Living among these Italians has distem¬ 
pered my blood.” She exclaimed that she was lost. 

“ In what w^ay can you be lost ?” said Lena. 

“ I have squandered more than half that I possess. I am 
almost a beggar. I am no longer the wealthy Countess 
Anna. I am much poorer than any one of us.” 

“ But Major Weisspriess is a man of honour, and if he 
loves you-” 

“ Yes ; he loves me ! he loves me! or would he come to me 
after I have sent him against a dozen swords ? But he is 
poor; he must, must marry a wealthy woman. I used to 
hate him because I thought he had his eye on money. I 



PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 


481 


love liim for it now. He deserves wealth; he is a matchless 
hero. He is more than the first swordsman of our army; he 
is a knightly man. Oh my soul Johann !” She very soon 
fell to raving. Lena was 'implored by her to give her hand 
to Weisspriess in reward for his heroism—“For you are 
rich,” Anna said ; “ you will not have to go to him feeling 
that you have made him face death a dozen times for your 
sake, and that you thank him and reward him by being a 
whimpering beggar in his arms. Do, dearest! Will you? 
Will you, to please me, marry Johann ? He is not unworthy 
of you.” And more of this hysterical hypociusy, which 
brought on fits of weeping. “I have lived among these 
savages till I have ceased to be human—forgotten every¬ 
thing but my religion,” she said. “ I wanted Weisspriess to 
show them that they dared not stand up against a man of 
us, and to tame the snarling curs. He did. He is brave. 
He did as much as a man could do, but I was unappeasable. 
They seem to have bitten me till I had a devouring hunger 
to humiliate them. Lena, will you believe that I have no 
hate for Carlo Ammiani or the woman he has married ? 
None I and yet, what have I done !” Anna smote her ^fore¬ 
head. “ They are nothing but little dots on a field for me. 
I don’t care whether they live or die. It’s like a thing done 
in sleep.” 

“ I want to know what you have done,” said Lena caress¬ 
ingly. 

“ You at least will try to reward our truest hero, and 
make up to him for your sister’s unkindness, will you not ?” 
Anna replied with a cajolery wonderfully like a sincere 
expression of her wishes. “ He will be a good husband. 
He has proved it by having been so faithful a—a lover. So 
you may be sure of him. And when he is yours, do not let 
him fight again, Lena, for I have a sickening presentiment 
that his next duel is his last.” 

“ Tell me,” Lena entreated her, “ pray tell me what 
horrible thing you have done to prevent your marrying 
him.” 

“ With their pride and their laughter,” Anna made 
answer ; “ the fools I were they to sting us perpetually and 
not suffer for it ? That woman, the Countess Alessandra, 
as she’s now called—have you forgotten that she helped 
our Paul’s assassin to escape ? was she not eternally plotting 


482 


VITTORIA. 


against Austria ? And I say that I love Austria. I love 
my country; I plot for my country. She and her husband 
plot, and I plot to thwart them. I have ruined myself in 
doing it. Oh, my heart! why has it commenced beating 
again ? Why did Weisspriess come here ? He offended 
me. He refused to do my orders, and left me empty- 
handed, and if he suffers too,” Anna relieved a hard look 
with a smile of melancholy, “ I hope he will not; I cannot 
Bay more.” 

“ And I’m to console him if he does ?” said Lena." 

• ‘'At least, I shall be out of the way,” said Anna. “I 
have still money enough to make me welcome in a con¬ 
vent.” 

“ I am to marry him ?” Lena persisted, and half induced 
Anna to act a feeble part, composed of sobs and kisses and 
full confession of her plight. Anna broke from her in time 
to leave what she had stated of herself vague and self- 
justificatory, so that she kept her pride, and could forgive, 
as she was ready to do even so far as to ask forgiveness in 
turn, when with her awakened enamoured heart she heard 
Vittoria sing at the concert of Pericles. Countess Ales- 
sandra’s divine gift, which she would not withhold, though 
in a misery of apprehension; her grave eyes, which none 
could accuse of coldness, though they showed no emotion; 
her simple noble manner that seemed to lift her up among 
the forces threatening her; these expressions of a superior 
soqI moved Anna under the influence of the incomparable 
voice to pass over envious contrasts, and feel the voice and 
the nature were one in that bosom. Could it be the same as 
the accursed woman who had stood before her at Meran ? 
She could hardly frame the question, but she had the 
thought sufficiently firmly to save her dignity; she was 
affected by very strong emotion when Vittoria’s singing 
ended, and nothing but the revival of the recollection of her 
old contempt preserved her from an impetuous desire to 
take the singer by the hand and have all clear between 
them; for they were now of equal rank to tolerating eyes. 
“ But she has no religious warmth !” Anna reflected with a 
glow of satisfaction. The concert Avas broken up by Laura 
Piaveni. She said out loud that the presence of Major 
Weisspriess was intolerable to the Countess Alessandra. It 
liappcned that Weisspriess entered the room while Laura 


PATHS COHVEEGING TO THE END. 


483 


sat. studying* the effect produced by her countrywoman’s 
voice on the thick eyelids of Austrian Anna, and Laura, 
seeing their enemy ready to weep in acknowledgment of 
their power, scorned the power which could never win free¬ 
dom, and broke up the sitting, citing the offence of the pre¬ 
sence of Weisspriess for a pretext. The incident threw 
Anna back upon her old vindictiveness. It caused an un¬ 
pleasant commotion in the duchess’s saloon. Count Sera- 
biglione was present, and ran round to Weisspriess, 
apologizing for his daughter’s behaviour. “ Do you think 
I can’t deal with your women as well as your men, you 
ass ?” said Weisspriess, enraged by the scandal of the 
scene. He was overheard by Count Karl Lenkenstein, who 
took him to task sharply for his rough speech; but Anna 
supported her lover, and they joined hands publicly. Anna 
went home prostrated with despair. “ What conscience is 
in me that I should wish one of my Kaiser’s officers killed ?” 
she cried enigmatically to Lena. “ But I must have free¬ 
dom. Oh ! to be free. I am chained to my enemy, and God 
blesses that woman. He makes her weep, but he blesses 
her, for her body is free, and mine,—the thought of mine 
sets flames creeping up my limbs as if I were tied to the 
stake. Losing a husband you love—what is that to taking 
a husband you hate ?” Still Lena could get no plain con¬ 
fession from her, for Anna clung to self-justification, and 
felt it abandoning her, and her soul fluttering in a black gulf 
when she opened her mouth to disburden herself. 

There came tidings of the bombardment of Brescia—one 
of the historic deeds of infamy. Many officers of the Impe¬ 
rial army perceived the shame which it cast upon their 
colours, even in those intemperate hours, and Karl Lenken¬ 
stein assumed the liberty of private friendship to go com¬ 
plaining to the old Marshal, who was too true a soldier to 
condemn a soldier in action, however strong his disapproval 
of proceedings. The liberty assumed by Karl was excessive; 
lie spoke out in the midst* of General officers as if his views 
were shared by them and the Marshal; and his error was 
soon corrected; one after another reproached him, until the 
Marshal, pitying his condition, sent him into his writing- 
closet, where he lectured the youth on military discipline. 
It chanced that there followed between them a question 
upon what the General in command at Brescia would do 

2i 2 


484 


VITTORIA. 


witli his prisoners ; and hearing that they were subject to 
the rigours of a court-martial, and if adjudged guilty, would 
forthwith summarily he shot, Karl ventured to ask grace for 
Vittoria’s husband. He succeeded finally in obtaining his 
kind old Chief’s promise that Count Ammiani should be 
tried in Milan, and as the bearer of a paper to that effect, he 
called on his sisters to get them or Wilfrid to convey word 
to Yittoria of her husband’s probable safety. He found 
Anna in a swoon, and Lena and the duchess bending over 
her. The duchess’s chasseur Jacob Baumwalder Feckelwitz 
had been returning from Meran, when on the Brescian high¬ 
road he met the spy Luigi, and acting promptly under the 
idea that Luigi was always a pestilential conductor of detest¬ 
able correspondence, he attacked him, overthrew him, and 
ransacked him, and bore the fruit of his sagacious exertions 
to his mistress in Milan; it was Violetta d’Isorella’s letter 
to Carlo Ammiani. “ I have read it,” the duchess said; 
“ contrary to my habits when letters are not addressed to 
me. I bring it open to your sister Anna. She catches sight 
of one or two names and falls down in the state in which you 
see her.” 

“ Leave her to me,” said Karl. 

He succeeded in extracting from Anna hints of the fact 
that she had paid a large sum of her own money to Countess 
d’Isorella for secrets connected with the Bergamasc and 
Brescian rising. “We were under a mutual oath to be 
silent, but if one has broken it the other cannot; so I confess 
it to you, dearest, good brother. I did this for my country 
at my personal sacrifice.” 

Karl believed that he had a sister magnificent in soul. 
She was glad to have deluded him, but she could not endure 
his praises, which painted to her imagination all that she 
might have been if she had not dashed her patriotism with 
the low cravings of vengeance, making herself like some 
abhorrent mediasval grotesque, composed of eagle and reptile. 
She was most eager in entreating him to save Count 
Ammiani’s life. Carlo, she said, was their enemy, but he 
had been their friend, and she declared with singular 
earnestness that she should never again sleep or hold up her 
head, if he were slain or captured. 

“My Anna is justified by me in everything she has done,” 
Karl said to the duchess. 


PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 


485 


** In that case,” the duchess replied, “ I have only to differ 
with her to feel your sword’s point at my breast.” 

“ I should certainly challenge the man who doubted her,” 
said Karl. 

The duchess laughed with a scornful melancholy. 

On the steps of the door where his horse stood saddled, 
he met Wilfrid, and from this promised brother-in-law 
received matter for the challenge. Wilfrid excitedly accused 
Anna of the guilt of a conspiracy to cause the destruction of 
Count Ammiani. In the heat of his admiration for his 
sister, Karl struck him on the cheek with his glove, and 
called him a name by which he had passed during the days 
of his disgrace, signifying one who plays with two parties. 
Lena’s maid heard them arrange to meet within an hour, 
and she having been a witness of the altercation, ran to her 
mistress in advance of Wilfrid, and so worked on Lena’s 
terrors on behalf of her betrothed and her brother, that Lena 
dropped at Anna’s feet telling her all that she had gathered 
and guessed in verification of Wilfrid’s charge, and implor¬ 
ing her to confess the truth. Anna, though she saw her 
concealment pierced, could not voluntarily forego her brother’s 
expressed admiration of her, and clung to the tatters of 
secresy. After a brief horrid hesitation, she chose to face 
Wilfrid. This interview began with lively recriminations, 
and was resulting in nothing—for Anna refused to be shaken 
by his statement that the Countess d’Isorella had betrayed 
her, and perceived that she was listening to concrete suspicions 
only—when, to give his accusation force, Wilfrid said that 
Brescia had surrendered and that Count Ammiani had es¬ 
caped. 

“And I thank God for it!” Anna exclaimed, and with 
straight frowning eyes, demanded the refutation of her sin¬ 
cerity. 

“ Count Ammiani and his men have five hours’ grace ahead 
of Major Kagen and half a regiment,” said Wilfrid. 

At this she gasped; she had risen her breath to deny or 
defy, and hung on the top of it without a voice. 

“ Tell us—say, but do say—confess that you know Kagen 
to be a name of mischief,” Lena prayed her. 

“ I will say anything to prevent my brother from running 
into d{ n ;er,” Anna rejoined. 


486 


VITTORIA. 


“ She is most foully accused by one whom we permitted to 
aspire to be of our own family,” said Karl. 

“ Yet you, Karl, have always been the first to declare her 
revengeful,” Lena turned to him. 

“Help, Karl, help me,” said Anna. 

“Yes!” cried her sister; “there you stand, and ask for 
help, meanest of women 1 Do you think these men are not 
in earnest ? Karl is to help you, and you will not speak a 
word to save him from a grave before night, or me from a 
lover all of blood.” 

“ Am I to be the sacrifice ?” said Anna. 

“ Whatever you call it, Wilfrid has spoken truth of you, 
and to none but members of our family ; and he had a right 
to say it, and you are bound now to acknowledge it.” 

“ I acknowledge that I love and serve my country, Lena.” 

“Hot with a pure heart: you can’t forgive. Insult or a 
wrong makes a madwoman of you. Confess, Anna! You 
know well that you can’t kneel to a priest’s ear, for you’ve 
stopped your conscience. You have pledged yourself to 
misery to satisfy a spite, and you have not the courage to ask 

for-” Lena broke her speech like one whose wits have 

been kindled. “ Yes, Karl,” she resumed; “ Anna begged 
you to help her. You will. Take her aside and save her 
from being miserable for ever. You do mean to fight my 
Wilfrid ?” 

“ I am certainly determined to bring him to repentance—■ 
leaving him the option of the way,” said Karl. 

Lena took her sullen sister by the arm. 

“ Anna, will you let these two men go to slaughter? Look 
at them; they are both our brothers. One is dearer than a 
brother to me, and, oh God! I have known what it is to half- 
lose him. You to lose a lover and have to go bound by a 
wretched oath to be the wife of a detestable short-sighted 
husband ! Oh, what an abominable folly !” 

This epithet, ‘ short-sighted,’ curiously forced in by Lena, 
was like a shock of the very image of Hagen’s needle features 
thrust against Anna’s eyes ; the spasm of revulsion in her 
frame was too quick for her habitual self-control. 

At that juncture Weisspriess opened the door, and Anna’s 
eyes met his. 

“ You don’t spare me,” she murmured to Lena. 



PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 




Her voice trembled, and Wilfrid benf his head near her, 
pressing her hand, and said, “ Not only T, but Countess Ales- 
sandra Ammiani exonerates you from blame. As she loves 
her country, you love yours. My words to Karl were an 
exaggeration of what I know and think. Only tell me this ; 
—if Nagen captures Count Ammiani, how is he likely to deal 
with him 

“ How can I inform you ?” Anna replied coldly ; but she 
reflected in a fire of terror. She had given Nagen the 
prompting of a hundred angry exclamations in the days of 
her fever of hatred ; she had nevertheless forgotten their 
parting words ; that is, she had forgotten her mood when he 
started for Brescia, and the nature of the last instructions 
she had given him. Revolting from the thought of 
execution being done upon Count Ammiani, as one quickly 
springing out of fever dreams, all her white face went into 
hard little lines, like the withered snow which wears away in 
frost. “ Yes,” she said; and again, “ Yes,” to something 
Weisspriess whispered in her ear, she knew not clearly what. 
Weisspriess told Wilfrid that he would wait below. As he 
quitted the room, the duchess entered, and went up to Anna. 
“ My good soul,” she said, “ you have, I trust, listened to 
Major Weisspriess. Oh, Anna! you wanted revenge. Now 
take it, as becomes a high-born woman; and let your enemy 
come to your feet, and don’t spurn her when she is there. 
Must I inform you that I have been to Countess d’Isorella 
myself with a man who can compel her to speak ? But 
Anna von Lenkenstein is not base like that Italian. Let them 
think of you as they will, I believe you to have a great heart. 
I am sure you will not allow personal sentiment to sully 
your devotion to our country. Show them that our Austrian 
faces can be bright; and meet her whom you call your 
enemy ; you cannot fly. You must see her, or you betray 
yourself. The poor creature’s husband is in danger of cap¬ 
ture or death.” 

While the duchess’s stern under-breath ran on hurriedly, 
convincing Anna that she had, with no further warning, to 
fall back upon her uttermost strength—the name of Countess 
Alessandra Ammiani was called at the door. Instinctively 
the others left a path between Vittoria and Anna. It was 
one of the moments when the adoption of a decisive course 
says more in vindication of conduct than long speeches. 


488 


VITTORIA. 


Anna felt that she was on her trial. For the first time since 
she had looked on this woman she noticed the soft splendour 
of Yittoria’s eyes, and the harmony of her whole figure; nor 
was the black dress of protesting Italian mourning any 
longer offensive in her sight, but on a sudden pitiful, for 
Anna thought: “ It may at this very hour be for her hus¬ 
band, and she not knowing it.” And with that she had a 
vision under her eyelids of Nagen like a shadowy devil in 
pursuit of men flying, and striking herself and Yittoria 
worse than dead in one blow levelled at Carlo Ammiani. A 
sense of supernatural horror chilled her blood when she 
considered again, facing her enemy, that their mutual hap¬ 
piness was by her own act involved in the fate of one life. 
She stepped farther than the halfway to greet her visitor, 
whose hands she took. Before a word was uttered between 
them, she turned to her brother, and with a clear voice 
said: 

“ Karl, the Countess Alessandra’s husband, our old friend 
Carlo Ammiani, may need succour in his flight. Try to 
cross it; or better, get among those who are pursuing him, 
and don’t delay one minute. You understand me.” 

Count Karl bowed his head, bitterly humbled. 

Anna’s eyes seemed to interrogate Yittoria, “ Can T do 
more ?” but her own heart answered her. 

Inveterate when following up her passion for vengeance, 
she was fanatical in responding to the suggestions of 
remorse. 

“Stay; I will despatch Major Weisspriess in my own 
name,” she said. “ He is a trusty messenger, and he knows 
those mountains. Whoever is the officer broken for aiding 
Count Ammiani’s escape, he shall be rewarded by me to the 
best of my ability. Countess Alessandra, I have anticipated 
your petition; I hope you may not have to reproach me. 
Remember that my country was in pieces when ,you and I 
declared war. You will not suffer without my suffering 
tenfold. Perhaps some day you will do me the favour to 
sing to me, when there is no chance of interruption. At 
present it is cruel to detain you.” 

Yittoria said simply : “ I thank you. Countess Anna.” 

She was led out by Count Karl to where Merthyr awaited 
her. All wondered at the briefness of a scene that had 
unexpectedly brought the crisis to many emotions and pas- 


PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END. 


489 


sions, as the broken Avaters of the sea beat together and 
make here or there the w’^ave which is topmost. Anna’s 
grand initiative hung in their memories like the throbbing 
of a pulse, so hotly their sensations SAvarmed about it, and 
so intensely it embraced and led what all were desiring. 
The duchess kissed Anna, saying: 

“ That is a noble heart to which you have become recon¬ 
ciled. Though you should never be friends, as I am with 
one of them, you will esteem her. Do not suppose her to 
be cold. She is the mother of an unborn little one, and for 
that little one’s sake she follows out every duty ; she checks 
every passion in her bosom. She will spare no sacrifice to 
save her husband, but she has brought her mind to look at 
the worst, for fear that a shock should destroy her motherly 
guard.” 

“ Really, duchess,” Anna replied, “ these are things for 
married women to hear;” and she provoked some contempt 
of her conventional delicacy, at the same time that in her 
imagination the image of Vittoria struggling to preserve 
this burden of motherhood against a tragic mischance, com¬ 
pletely humiliated and overAvhelmed her, as if nature had 
also come to add to her mortifications. 

“ I am ready to confess everything I have done, and to be 
knoAvnfor what I am,” she said. 

“ Confess no more than is necessary, but do everything 
you can ; that’s wisest,” returned the duchess. 

“ Ah ; you mean that you have nothing to learn.” Anna 
shuddered. 

“ I mean that you are likely to run into the other extreme 
of disfavouring yourself just noAv, my child. And,” con¬ 
tinued the duchess, “ you have behaved so splendidly that I 
won’t think ill of you.” 

Before the day darkened, Wilfrid obtained, through Prince 
Radocky’s influence, an order addressed to Major Ragen for 
the surrender of prisoners into his hands. He and Count 
Karl started for the Val Camonica on the chance of inter¬ 
cepting the pursuit. These were not much wiser than their 
guesses and their apprehensions made them ; but Weiss- 
priess started on the like errand after an interAuew with 
Anna, and he had drawn sufficient intelligence out of sobs, 
and broken sentences, and torture of her spirit, to understand 
^hat if Count Ammiani fell alive or dead into Kagen’s hands, 


490 


VITTOEIA, 


JiTagen by Anna’s scrnpnlous oath, had a claim on her person 
and her fortune : and he knew Nagen to be a gambler. As 
he was Nagen’s superior officer, and a near relative of the 
Brescian commandant, who would be induced to justify his 
steps, his object was to reach and arbitrarily place himself 
over Nagen, as if upon a special mission, and to get the lead 
of the expedition. For that purpose he struck somewhat 
higher above the Swiss borders than Karl and Wilfrid, and 
gained a district in the mountains above the vale perfectly 
familiar to him. Obeying directions forwarded to her by 
Wilfrid, Yittoria left Milan for the Yal Camonica no later 
than the evening; Laura was with her in the carriage; 
Merthyr took horse after them as soon as he had succeeded 
in persuading Countess Ammiani to pardon her daughter’s 
last act of w'ilfulness, and believe that, during the agitation 
of unnumbered doubts, she ran less peril in the wilds where 
her husband fled, than in her home. 

“ I will trust to her idolatrously, as you do,” Countess 
Ammiani said ; “ and perhaps she has already proved to me 
that I may.” 

Merthyr saw Agostino while riding out of Milan, and was 
seen by him; but the old man walked onward, looking 
moodily on the stones, and merely waved his hand behind. 


CHAPTER XLYL 

IHE LAST. 

There is hard winter overhead in the mountains when 
Italian Spring w^alks the mountain-sides with flowers, and 
hangs deep valley-walls with flowers half fruit; the sources 
of the rivers above are set about with fangs of ice, while the 
full flat stream runs to a rose of sunlight. High among the 
mists and snows w'ere the fugitives of Brescia, and those 
who for love or pity struggled to save them wandered 
through the blooming vales, sometimes' hearing that they 
had crossed the frontier into freedom, and as often that they 
were scattered low in death and captivity. Austria here, 
^witzprland yonder, and but one depth between to bound 



THE LAST. 


491 


across and win calm breatliing. But mountain might call to 
mountain, peak shine to peak ; a girdle of steel drove the 
hunted men back to frosty heights and clouds, the shifting 
bosom of snows and lightnings. They saw nothing of hands 
stretched out to succour. They saw a sun that did not warm 
them, a home of exile inaccessible, crags like an earth gone 
to skeleton in hungry air; and below, the land of their 
birth, beautiful, and sown everywhere for them with tor¬ 
ture and captivity, or death, the sweetest. 

Fifteen men numbered the escape from Brescia. They 
fought their way twice through passes of the mountains, and 
might easily, in their first dash Northward from the South¬ 
facing hills, have crossed to the Valteline and Engadine, but 
that in their insanity of anguish they meditated another 
blow, and were readier to march into the plains with the 
tricolor than to follow any course of flight. When the 
sun was no longer in their blood they thought of reason and 
of rest; they voted the expedition to Switzerland, that so 
they should get round to Borne, and descended from the 
crags of the Tonale, under which they were drawn to an 
ambush, suffering three of their party killed, and each man 
bloody with wounds. The mountain befriended them, and 
gave them safety, as truth is given by a bitter friend. 
Among icy crags and mists, where the touch of life grows 
dull as the nail of a forefinger, the features of the moun¬ 
tain were stamped on them, and with hunger they lost pride, 
and with solitude laughter; with endless fleeing they lost 
the aim of flight; some became desperate, a few craven. 
Companionship was broken before they parted in three 
bodies, commanded severally by Colonel Corte, Carlo 
Ammiani, and Barto Bizzo. Corte reached the plains, 
masked by the devotion of Carlo’s band, who lured the 
soldiery to a point and drew a chase, while Corte passed the 
line and pushed on for Switzerland. Carlo told off his 
cousin A;igelo Guidascarpi in the list of those following 
Corte; but when he fled up to the snows again, he beheld 
Angelo spectral as the vapour on a jut of rock awaiting him. 
Barto Bizzo had chosen his own way, none knew whither. 
Carlo, Angelo, Marco Sana, and a sharply-wounded Brescian 
lad, conceived the scheme of traversing the South Tyrol 
mountain-range toward Friuli, whence Venice, the still- 
breathing republic, might possibly be gained. They carried 


492 


VITTORIA. 


the boy in turn till his arms drooped long down, and when 
tliey knew the soul was out of him they buried him in snow, 
and thought him happy. It was then that Marco Sana took 
his death for an omen, and decided them to turn their heads 
once more for Switzerland; telling them that the boy, 
whom he last had carried, uttered “ Rome” with the flying 
breath. Angelo said that Sana would get to Rome; and 
Carlo, smiling on Angelo, said they w^ere to die twins though 
they had been born only cousins. The language they had 
fallen upon was mystical, scarce intelligible to other than 
themselves. On a clear morning, with the Swiss peaks in 
sight, they were condemned by want of food to quit their 
fastness for the valley. 

( Vittoria read the faces of the mornings as human crea,tures 
have tried to gather the sum of their destinies off changing 
surfaces,—fair not meaning fair, nor black black, but either 
the mask upon the secret of God’s terrible will; and to learn 
it and submit, was the spiritual burden of her motherhood, 
that the child leaping with her heart might live. Rot to 
hope blindly, in the exceeding anxiousness of her passionate 
love, nor blindly to fear; not to let her soul fly out among 
the twisting chances; not to sap her great maternal duty 
by affecting false stoical serenity:—to nurse her soul’s 
strength, and suckle her womanly weakness with the tears 
which are poison when repressed ; to be at peace with a 
disastrous world for the sake of the dependent life unborn; 
by such pure efforts she clung to God. Soft dreams of sacred 
nuptial tenderness, tragic images, wild pity, were like phan¬ 
toms encircling her, plucking at her as she went, but they 
were beneath her feet, and she kept them from lodging 
between her breasts. The thought that her husband, though 
he should have perished, was not a life lost if their child 
lived, sustained her powerfully. It seemed to whisper at 
times almost as it were Carlo’s ghost breathing in her ears : 
“ On thee !” On her the further duty devolved ; and she 
trod down hope, lest it should build her up and bring a 
shock to surprise her fortitude : she put back alarm. 

The mountains and the valleys scarce had names for her 
understanding; they were but a scene where the will of her 
Maker was at work. Rarely has a soul been so subjected 
by its own force. She certainly had the image of God in 
her mind. 


THE LAST. 


4f)3 

Yet ■when her eyes lingered on any mountain gorge, the 
'fate of her husband sang within it a strange chant, ending 
in a key that rang sounding through all her being, and 
seemed to question heaven. This music framed itself; it 
was still when she looked at the shrouded mountain-tops. 
A shadow meeting sunlight on the long green slopes aroused 
it, and it hummed above the tumbling hasty foam, and pene¬ 
trated hanging depths of foliage, sad-hued rock-clefts, dark 
green ravines ; it became convulsed where the mountain 
threw forw'ard in a rushing upward line against the sky, 
there to be severed at the head by cloud. It was silent 
among the vines. 

Most painfully did human voices affect her when she had 
this music; speech was a scourge to her sense of hearing, 
and touch distressed her: an edge of purple flame would 
then unfold the vision of things to her eyes. She had lost 
memory ; and if by hazard unawares one idea w^as projected 
by some sudden tumult of her enslaved emotions beyond 
known and visible circumstances, her intelligence darkened 
with an oppressive dread like that of zealots of the guilt of 
impiety. 

Thus destitute, her eyes took innumerable pictures sharp ' 
• as on a brass-plate: torrents, goat-tracks winding up red 
earth, rocks veiled with water, cottage and children, strings 
of villagers mounting to the church, one woman keeling 
before a wayside cross, her basket at her back, and her child 
gazing idly by ; perched hamlets, rolling pasture-fields, the 
vast mountain lines. She asked all that she saw, “ Does he 
live ?” but the life was out of everything, and these shows 
told of no life, neither of joy nor of grief. She could only 
distantly connect the appearance of the white-coated soldiery 
with the source of her trouble. They were no more than 
figures on a screen that hid the flashing of the sword which 
renders dumb. She had charity for one who was footsore 
and sat cherishing his ankle by a village spring, and she 
fed him, and not until he was far behind, thought that he 
might have seen the -vdiite face of her husband. 

Accurate tidings could not be obtained, though the whole 
course of the vale was full of stories of escapes, conflicts, 
and captures. Merthyr learnt positively that some fugitives 
had passed the cordon. He came across Wilfrid and Count 
Harl, who both verified it in the most sanguine manner. 


494 


VITTOEIA. 


They knew, however, that Major Nag’en continued in the 
mountains. Riding by a bend of the road, Merthyr beheld 
a man playing among children, with one hand and his head 
down apparently for concealment at his approach. It proved 
to be Beppo. The man believed that Count Ammiani had 
fled to Switzerland. Barto Rizzo, he said, was in the 
mountains still, and Beppo invoked damnation on him, as 
the author of those lying proclamations which had ruined 
Brescia. He had got out of the city later tnan the others, 
and was seeking to evade the outposts, that he might join 
his master—“ that is, my captain, for I have only one 
master;” he corrected the slip of his tongue appealingly to 
Merthyr. His left hand was being coirtinually plucked at 
by the children while he talked, and after Merthyr had 
dispersed them with a shower of small coin, he showed the 
hand, saying, glad of eye, that it had taken a sword-cut 
intended for Count Ammiani. Merthyr sent him back to 
mount the carriage, enjoining him severely not to speak. 

When Carlo and his companions descended from the 
mountains, they entered a village where there was an inn 
recognized by Angelo as the abode of Jacopo Cruchi. He 
there revived Carlo’s animosity toward Weisspriess by tell¬ 
ing the tale of the passage to Meran, and his good reasons 
for determining to keep guard over the Countess Alessandra 
all the way. Subsequently Angelo went to Jacopo for food. 
This he procured, but he w^as compelled to leave the man 
behind, and unpaid. It was dark when he left the inn ; he 
had some difficulty in evading a flock of whitecoats, and his 
retreat from the village was still on the Austrian side. 
Somewhat about midnight Merthyr reached the inn, herald¬ 
ing the carriage. As Jacopo caught sight of Vittoria’s face, 
he fell with his shoulders straightened against the wall, and 
cried out loudly that he had betrayed no one, and mentioned 
Major Weisspriess by name as having held the point of his 
sword at him and extracted nothing better than a wave of 
the hand and a lie; in other words, that the fugitives had 
retired to the Tyrolese mountains, and that he had shammed 
ignorance of who they were. Merthyr read at a glance that 
Jacopo had the large swallow and calm digestion for bribes, 
an'l getting the fellow alone he laid money in view, out of 
which, by doubling the sum to make Jacopo correct his first 
statement, and then by threatening to withdraw it altogether, 


THE LAST. 


495 


he gained knowledge of the fact that Angelo Gnidascarpi 
had recently visited the ion, and had started from it South- 
e.istward, and that Major Weisspriess was following on his 
track. He wrote a line of strong entreaty to Weisspriess, 
lest that officer should perchance relapse into anger at the 
taunts of prisoners abhorring him with the hatred of Carlo 
and Angelo. At the same time he gave Beppo a consider¬ 
able supply of money, and then sent him oif, armed as far as 
possible to speed Count Ammiani safe across the borders, if 
a fugitive; or if a prisoner, to ensure the best which could 
be hoped for him from an adversary become generous. That 
evening Vittoria lay with her head on Laura’s lap, and the 
pearly little crescent of her ear in moonlight by the window. 
So fair and young and still she looked that Merthyr feared 
for her, and thought of sending her back to Countess 
Ammiani. 

Her first question with the lifting of her eyelids was if he 
had ceased to trust to her courage. 

“ Ho,” said Merthyr; “there are bounds to human strength; 
that is all.” 

She answered: “ There would be to mine if I had not 
more than human strength beside me. I bow my head, 
dearest; it is that. I feel that I cannot break down as long 
as I know what is passing. Does my husband live ?” 

“Yes, he lives,” said Merthyr; and she gave him her 
hand, and went to her bed. 

He learnt from Laura that when Beppo mounted the 
carriage in silence, a fit of ungovernable wild trembling had 
come on her, broken at intervals by a cry that something 
was concealed. Laura could give no advice ; she looked on 
ISferthyr and Vittoria as two that had an incomprehensible 
knowledge of the power of one another’s natures, and the 
fiery creature remained passive in perplexity of mind, as soft 
an attendant as a suffering woman could ifav^e. 

Merthyr did not sleep, and in the morning Vittoria said to 
him, “ You want to be active, ray friend. Go, and we will 
wait for you here. I know that I am never deceived by you, 
and when I see you I know that the truth speaks and bids 
me be worthy of it. Go up there,” .she pointed with shut 
eyes at the mountains; “ leave me to pray for greater 
strength. I am among Italians at this inn, and shall spend 


496 


VITTOEIA. 


money liere; tlie poor people love it. Slie smiled a little, 
sliowin^^ a glimpse of her old charitable humour. 

Merthyr counselled Laura that in case of evil tidings 
during his absence she should reject her feminine ideas of 
expediency, and believe that she was speaking to a brave 
soul firmly rooted in the wisdom of heaven. 

“ Tell her ?—she will die,” said Laura, shuddering. 

“Get tears from her,” Merthyr rejoined; “but hide 
nothing from her for a single instant; keep her in daylight. 
For God’s sake, keep her in daylight.” 

“ It’s too sharp a task for me.” She repeated that she 
was incapable of it. 

“ Ah,” said he, “ look at your Italy, how she weeps ! and 
she has cause. She would die in her grief, if she had no 
faith for what is to come. I dare say it is not, save in the 
hearts of one or two, a conscious faith, but it’s real divine 
strength; and Alessandra Ammiani has it. Do as I bid you. 
I return in two days.” 

Without understanding him, Laura promised that she 
would do her utmost to obey, and he left her muttering to 
herself as if she were schooling her lips to speak reluctant 
words. He started for the mountains with gladdened limbs, 
taking a guide, who gave his name as Lorenzo, and talked of 
having been ‘ out ’ in the previous year. “ I am a patriot, 
signore ! and not only in opposition to my beast of^ a wife, I 
assure you: a downright patriot, I mean,” Merthyr was 
tempted to discharge him at first, but controlled his English 
antipathy to babblers, and discovered him to be a serviceable 
fellow. Toward nightfall they heard shots up a rock-strewn 
combe of the lower slopes; desultory shots indicating rifle¬ 
firing at long range. Darkness made them seek shelter in a 
pine-hut; starting from which at dawn, Lorenzo ran beating 
about like a dog over the place where the shots had sounded 
on the foregoing day; he found a stone spotted with blood. 
Not far from the stone lay a military glove that bore brown- 
crimson finger-ends. They were striking off to a dairy-hut 
for fresh milk, when out of a crevice of rock overhung by 
shrubs a man’s voice called, and Merthyr climbing up from 
perch to perch, saw Marco Sana lying at half length, shot 
through hand and leg. From him Merthyr learnt that Carlo 
and Angelo had fled higher up; yesterday they had been 


THE LAST. 


497 


attacked by Weisspriess, who tried to lure them to surrender 
by coming forward at the head of his men and offering 
safety, and “ other gabble,” said Marco. He offered a fair 
shot at his heart, too, while he stood below a rock that 
Marco pointed at gloomily as a hope gone for ever; but 
Carlo would not allow advantage to be taken of even the 
treacherous simulation of chivalry, and only permitted firing 
after he had returned to his men. “ I was hit here and 
here,” said Marco, touching his wounds, as men can hardly 
avoid doing when speaking of the fresh wound. Merthyr i 
got him on his feet, put money in his pocket, and led him off 
the big stones painfully. “ They give no quarter,” Marco 
assured him, and reasoned that it must be so, for they had 
not taken him prisoner, though they saw him fall, and ran 
by or in view of him in pursuit of Carlo. By this Merthyr 
was convinced that Weisspriess meant well. He left his 
guide in charge of Marco to help him into the Engadine. 
Greatly to his astonishment, Lorenzo tossed the back of his 
hand at the offer of money. “ There shall be this difference 
between me and my wife,” he remarked ; “ and besides, 
gracious signore, serving my countrymen for nothing, that’s 
for love, and the Tedeschi can’t punish me for it, so it’s one 
way of cheating them, the w’olves!” Merthyr shook his 
hand and said, “ Instead of my servant, be my friend and 
Lorenzo made no feeble mouth, but answered, “ Signore, it 
is much to my honour,” and so they went different ways. 

Left to himself Merthyr set step vigorously upward. In¬ 
formation from herdsmen told him that he was an hour off 
the foot of one of the passes. He begged them to tell any 
hunted men who might come within hail that a friend ran 
seeking them. Farther up, while thinking of the fine nature 
of that Lorenzo, and the many men like him who could not 
by the very existence of nobility in their bosoms suffer their 
country to go through another generation of servitude, his 
heart bounded immensely, for he heard a shout and his 
name, and he beheld two figures on a rock near the gorge 
where the mountain opened to its heights. But they were 
not Carlo and Angelo. They were Wilfrid and Count Karl, 
the latter of whom had discerned him through a telescope. 
They had good news to revive him, however: good at least 
in the main. Hagen had captured Carlo and Angelo, they 
believed; but they had left Weisspriess near on Hagen’s de- 


498 


VITTORTA. 


ta.climeiit, and they furnished sound military reasons to shoTsr 
^vhy, if Weisspriess favoured the escape, they should not be 
present. They supposed that they were not half a mile from 
the scene in the pass where Nagen was being forcibly de¬ 
posed from his authority. Merthyr borrowed Count Karl’s 
glass, and went as they directed him round a blu:ffi of the 
descending hills, that faced the vale, much like a blown and 
beaten sea-cliff. Wilfrid and Karl were so certain of Count 
Ammiani’s safety, that their only thought was to get under 
good cover before nightfall, and haply into good quarters, 
where the three proper requirements of the soldier—meat, 
wine, and tobacco—might be furnished to them. After an 
imperative caution that they should not present themselves 
before the Countess Alessandra, Merthyr sped quickly over 
the broken ground. How gaily the two young men cheered 
to him as he hurried on ! He met a sort of pedlar turning 
the blunt-faced mountain-spur, and this man said, “ Yes, 
sure enough, prisoners had been taken,” and he was not 
aware of harm having been done to them ; he fancied there 
was a quarrel between two captains. His plan being always 
to avoid the military, he had slunk round and away from 
‘them as fast as might be. An Austrian common soldier, a 
good-humoured German, distressed by a fall that had hurt 
his knee-cap, sat within the gorge, which was very wide at 
the mouth. Merthyr questioned him, and he, while mend¬ 
ing one of his gathered cigar-ends, pointed to a meadow near 
the beaten track, some distance up the rocks. Whitecoats 
stood thick on it. Merthyr lifted his telescope and perceived 
an eager air about the men, though they stood ranged in 
careless order. He began to mount forthwith, but amazed 
by a sudden ringing of shot, he stopped, asking himself in 
horror whether it could be an execution. The shots and the 
noise increased, until the confusion of a positive mellay 
reigned above. The fall of the meadow swept to a bold 
crag right over the pathway, and with a projection that seen 
sideways made a vulture’s head and beak of it. There rolled 
a corpse down the precipitous wave of green grass on to the 
crag, where it lodged, face to the sky; sword dangled from 
sword-knot at one wrist, heels and arms were in the air, and 
the body caught midway hung poised and motionless. The 
firing deadened. Then Merthyr drawing nearer beneath the 
crag, saw one who had life in him slipping down toward the 


EPILOGUE. 


499 


body, and knew the man for Beppo. Beppo knocked his 
hands together and groaned miserably, but flung himself 
astride the beak of the crag, and took the body in his arms, 
sprang down with it, and lay stunned at Merthyr’s feet. 
Merthyr looked on the face of Carlo Ammiani, 


Epilogue. 

hTo nncontested version of the tragedy of Count Ammiani’s 
death passed current in Milan during many years. With 
time it became disconnected from passion, and took form in 
a plain narrative. He and Angelo were captured by Major 
Kagen, and were, as the soldiers of the force subsequently 
let it be known, roughly threatened with what he termed 
‘ Brescian short credit.’ The appearauce of Major Weiss- 
priess and his claim to the command created a violent dis¬ 
cussion between the two ofiicers. Weisspriess succeeded 
in establishing his ascendancy; upon which he spoke to the 
prisoners, telling Carlo that for his wife’s sake he should be 
free on the morrow, and Angelo that he must expect the fate 
of a murderer. His address to them was deliberate, and 
quite courteous : he expressed himself sorry that a gallant 
gentleman like Angelo Guidascarpi should merit a bloody 
grave, but so it was. At the same time he entreated Count 
Ammiani to rely on his determination to save him. Major 
Hagen did not stand far removed from them. Carlo turned 
to him and repeated the words of Weisspriess; nor could 
Angelo restrain his cousin’s vehement renunciation of hope 
and life in doing this. He accused Weisspriess of a long 
evasion of a brave man’s obligation to repair an injury, 
charged him with cowardice, and requested Major Hagen, as 
a man of honour, to drag his brother offlcer to the duel. 
Hagen then said that Major Weisspriess was his superior in 
the command, adding that his gallant brother officer had 
only of late objected to vindicate his reputation with his 
sword. Stung finally beyond the control of an irritable 
temper, Weisspriess walked out of sight of the soldiery with 
C*arlo, to whom, at a special formal request from Weisspriess, 
Hagen handed his sword. Again he begged Count Ammiani 
to abstain from fighting; yea, to strike him and disable him, 



500 


VITTOEIA. 


Cl - 

and fly, rather than provoke the skill of his right hand. 
Carlo demanded his cousin’s freedom. It was denied to him, 
and Carlo claimed his privilege. The witnesses of the duel 
were Jenna and another young subaltern : both declared it 
fair according to the laws of honour, when their stupefaction 
on beholding the proud swordsman of the army stretched 
lifeless on the brown leaves of the past year left them with 
power to speak. Thus did Carlo slay his old enemy who 
would have served as his friend. A shout of rescue was 
heard before Carlo had yielded up his weapon. Four hag¬ 
gard and desperate men, headed by Barto Bizzo, burst from 
an ambush on the guard encircling Angelo. There, with one 
thought of saving his doomed cousin and comrade. Carlo 
rushed, and not one Italian survived the fight. 

An unarmed spectator upon the meadow-borders, Beppo, 
had but obscure glimpses of scenes shifting like a sky in 
advance of hurricane winds. 

Merthyr delivered the burden of death to Yittoria. He 
soul had crossed the darkness of the river of death in that 
quiet agony preceding the revelation of her Maker’s will, 
and she drew her dead husband to her bosom and kissed him 
on the eyes and the forehead, not as one who had quite gone 
away from her, but as one who lay upon another shore 
whither she would come. The manful friend, ever by her 
side, saved her by his absolute trust in her fortitude to bear 
the great sorrow undeceived, and to walk with it to its last 
resting-place on earth unobstructed. Clear knowledge of 
her, the issue of reverent love, enabled him to read her un¬ 
equalled strength of nature, and to rely on her fidelity to her 
highest mortal duty in a conflict with extreme despair. She 
lived through it as her Italy had lived through the hours 
which brought her face to face with her dearest in death; 
and she also on the day, ten years later, when an Emperor 
and a King stood beneath the vault of the graud Duomo, and 
the organ and a peal of voices rendered thanks to Heaven for 
liberty, could show the fruit of her devotion in the dark-eyed 
boy. Carlo Merthyr Ammiani, standing between Merthyr 
and her, with old blind Agostino’s hands upon his head. 
And then once more, and but for once, her voice was heard 
in Milan. 

THE END. 

department 



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